


Hitched

by LitRaptor42



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Gen, Road Trips, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-04
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-09-28 07:08:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 45,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10078910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LitRaptor42/pseuds/LitRaptor42
Summary: Hitchhiker Emma catches a ride with a quiet truck driver named Jones. Can these perfect strangers become friends... or maybe more? A Captain Swan AU that I've been teasing on Tumblr for ages. MA for sexual scenes and language.





	1. Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

* * *

The southbound on-ramp seemed to beckon to her, stretching wide and flat up the small hill until it crested on a small incline, leading to the highway.  Emma gnawed her lip, torn. She didn’t know whether it was legal to hitchhike on highways in Maine—it was definitely illegal in some other states—but even if it was, the alternative was trekking back to the truck stop in Bangor and trying to con someone there into giving her a ride.

_And if I did, I’d end up using my boobs to do it_ , she thought bitterly. She gritted her teeth, suddenly filled with determination, and strode forward toward the ramp.

Chilly wind whistled from beneath the underpass, and she reached up to pull her tuque lower, snugging it around her ears. Then taking a deep breath, she extended her arm and put up her thumb.

“Anyone but a trucker,” she muttered. “Come on.”

* * *

Cars, pickup trucks, vans, and SUVs alike blew past her for the next hour or so. She saw more than one middle finger raised in her direction, and received a few honks. One jerk in a station wagon even swerved in her direction, forcing her to jump sideways across the shoulder and nearly fall down the embankment.

“Asshole!” she yelled after the squat, wood-paneled car, her heart racing as it revved up the ramp towards the highway.

Maybe it was time to resign herself to the fact that no one was pulling over. Emma hoiked her backpack up, glaring resentfully at the setting sun. The western sky was a symphony of color, fading from a deep yellow at the horizon to a lighter pink above, fluffy clouds surmounting the dark tree line. But all she could think about was how if she didn’t get a ride tonight, she’d most likely end up sleeping on a bench in the bus station. Again.

“Sailor’s delight, my ass,” she said under her breath. She rubbed her hands together, then stuck them under her arms, trying desperately to capture some warmth. Her fingers had long since gone numb inside the gloves. The cold was beginning to reach her guts, too; she shivered, miserably aware that she should really just go back to the truck stop.

And it was then that she saw the tractor-trailer trundling its way up the state route. Her breath caught in her throat—why would a semi be coming in this direction out of Bangor, if not to get on the highway? Emma felt herself sagging, and hesitated.  But her desperation got the better of her, and she slowly raised her hand with the thumb up, hating her life with all her heart. Better a truck than no ride, which seemed to be the alternative.

At first the truck didn’t seem to be slowing; a black Freightliner with a silver refrigerated trailer attached, it slowly rolled its way up the road and swung to its right to enter the on-ramp. Emma felt her heart sinking as it kept moving.

But as the end of the trailer rounded the corner past her, she saw brake lights beneath the Pennsylvania plates, and the cab leisurely swerved to the shoulder of the on-ramp, the whole kit and caboodle coming to a halt a few dozen yards away. There was a quick, friendly honk, and with a clunk, the passenger door cracked open. Emma didn’t hesitate this time; she snatched up her duffel bag and jogged up the shoulder.

_Please let it be a woman, please let it be a woman, please let it be a woman_ , she thought frantically.

She tossed her duffel bag into the cab, then seized the door and hauled herself up. “Thanks,” she said, slightly breathless, bouncing onto the leather passenger’s seat.

“No problem,” said the driver: who was, to her disappointment, a man.  But he wasn’t a bad-looking sort, youngish and calm, wearing the ubiquitous flannel shirt and padded vest. “Headed south?” he inquired as he buckled his seatbelt, dark brows raised in friendly curiosity.

“Yeah. As far as you’ll take me,” Emma answered shortly, and reached up to pull the seat belt across her body. The interior of the cab was warm, gloriously so, and smelled not unpleasantly of coffee and the sharp tang of motor oil. She could already feel her exhaustion catching up to her, and pulled off her gloves, running a hand through her greasy, tangled hair, her fingers catching at the ends. _I desperately need a shower, but we’ll worry about that later_ , she thought unhappily.

The driver gave a little breath of laughter and shifted into gear, the truck bumping forward and off the shoulder. “Well… First stop is southwest, in Scranton. Then from there, the Midwest—Kansas, if I had to guess. If you’d like to see Portland, I can even accommodate that request. Although, of course, you wouldn’t get there ‘til the beginning of next week.”

Emma realized that his accent wasn’t American. She looked over at the driver as he accelerated onto the highway. “Er,” she said at last, blinking. He glanced over at her and flashed a grin, white teeth dim in the dusk. “I mean, the further the better,” she said, somewhat suspicious. He was awfully attractive, for a trucker.

“All right, then,” he said cheerfully.

There was a brief silence as they merged onto the highway, Emma’s companion checking his mirrors and continuing to shift through the many gears. She watched from the corner of her eye warily, a hand on the door handle.  It had been awhile since she had ridden with a trucker, and past experience had left her dubious (rather ironically) of one willing to stop for a hitchhiker. Even if that pervert in Santa Fe had been the exception rather than the rule, Emma had no intention of getting left at a rest stop in the middle of the night again.

But she found herself instinctively relaxing somewhat in this driver’s presence, and glanced back over him again. In the fast-fading light of the scarlet sunset, she could see that despite a heavy dusting of gingery scruff and the familiar mesh trucker’s cap (tilted up high to show a shock of unruly dark hair), he was more or less a clean-cut sort of man, wearing his flannel shirt tucked into his jeans, a plain Timex strapped to his wrist. Even the interior of the cab itself was fairly tidy, unlike many other rigs she’d been inside of. Yeah… his oddly good looks aside, she probably could have gotten someone much worse.

“Emma,” she said suddenly. He glanced over again, and she saw a flash of intelligent eyes from his lean face. “Emma Swan. Thanks… for stopping.”

He grinned again. Not taking his eyes from the road, he lifted his hand from the stick shift and offered it to her. “Quite welcome. I’m Killian Jones—and I’ll be your host for the evening, thank you very much.”

Amused, Emma found herself snorting at his affected nasal American accent. “Not that I’ve hitched with a ton of truckers, but… you’ve got to be the first British guy I’ve met behind the helm of an eighteen-wheeler,” she said dryly, and reached over to take his warm, calloused hand, shaking it briefly before once more curling back into her seat.

He chuckled warmly in response. “One finds work where one can, aye?” he said amiably, shrugging.

Emma made an inconsequential noise in response, nodding.  She leaned against the door, drawing one foot up onto the seat and putting her hands on the heater in front of her. 

A comfortable silence followed, in which they continued to steadily plunge down the highway. The driver said nothing, reaching forward to politely turn up the heat for her, and to tweak the radio.  Emma had once caught a ride from Amarillo to Dallas with a driver—a preacher, nice enough but entirely too serious about his profession—who had insisted upon listening to only Christian radio talk shows. Her stomach tightened now as her companion kept clicking forward, past the drawl of country music and the occasional thumping bass of modern punk rock.

But at last he settled on a folksy sort of station, its acoustic guitar and crooning singers well-suited to the soft light of dusk; then he lowered the volume to a gentle hum. The knot in Emma’s stomach unclenched. Now she could only pray that he wasn’t the garrulous type. That was even worse: when the driver thought they were entitled to your life story in exchange for the ride.

The cab remained quiet, though; as they reached a good cruising speed, the driver kept his eyes straight ahead, his hand moving to drape loosely over the top of the steering wheel.  Emma leaned against the door, and slowly let out a long breath, the buzz of adrenaline beginning to fade from her veins.

She stared out the window, watching the woods slip by them as night drew on. After a few minutes, even the dim light of sunset had faded, and the only lights were the truck headlights, bright on the uninterrupted pavement ahead. The thought of leaving Maine for good broke her heart, but… what was she supposed to do? If she so much as used her credit card before she crossed the state line, Regina would probably call the staties (she had friends _everywhere_ in that state, damn her!) and have Emma arrested and hauled back to the Storeybrooke jail posthaste.

And besides that… the further she fled, the less tempted she’d be to catch a bus back into town just to see Henry one more time. Emma felt her face growing red, her eyes swelling: she knew quite well how motivated a good bail bondsperson could be, and no doubt Regina would hire the best.

She took a deep breath and stared out the window, concentrating on counting the space of her breaths in between mile markers. The feeling had finally come back into her hands, and she stuffed them underneath her arms, wishing she could head south and find some beach to crash on.  Flat, dreary Kansas didn’t sound terribly appealing, but Emma wondered if the driver would really let her hitch all the way to Portland. She’d been a waitress before; maybe she could do it again there. She’d heard that minimum wage in that city was higher than other places, and she had enough money left in her bank account to rent a place for a little while as she got her feet under her.

Lulled by the dark and the relative quiet, she didn’t notice how sleepy she had become until her chin touched her chest. Snorting, she blinked, raising her head. They were still cruising; but suddenly the mile markers had jumped nearly twenty miles ahead.

She glanced over at her companion, self-conscious and hoping he hadn’t noticed. No such luck. Jones turned his head slightly to meet her eyes, a corner of his mouth creasing in a smile. “You can go in the back and lie down, love. If you like,” he said, tilting his head to behind them. “I’m probably not going to pull over and sleep myself until we’re past Boston.”

Emma shook her head. _Hell no, buddy_ , she was tempted to respond, irritated. As if she was going to crawl into a stranger’s bunk, or trust him enough to leave the front seat!  And although he’d probably said it with perfect simplicity, the ‘love’ part had brought back that little uncomfortable clench in her guts. She said nothing in response, staring out the window again; after a moment her companion sighed.

He remained quiet, though, keeping whatever offended thoughts he might have to himself. In the corner of her vision, she saw him reach down and pick up a coffee tumbler for a drink. Emma longed to dig into her bag and pull out one of the battered novels she’d hastily thrown in before fleeing Storeybrooke; but that would entail politely inquiring if Jones minded her turning on an overhead light, and her tongue seemed to have turned to stone.

She resettled herself against the passenger door, watching as they passed a sullenly lit trailer park, just off the highway. It was painfully like the park she’d lived in once, around ten years of age. Not the worst foster home she’d ever been in, but definitely the most uncomfortable, crammed into a three-bedroom doublewide with the parents and their own three kids. And the school there had been abysmal. Emma sometimes wondered how that family had even qualified for the system.

Jones had turned the heating vents down again, but the cab was still comfortably warm, and Emma could feel her eyes growing heavy with exhaustion as she watched the trailer park fade into a pine forest. The hike from Storeybrooke to the Bangor bus station the day before had taken basically all day, and although the sun had stayed out for most of it, making for a pleasant trek, her boots weren’t exactly new, and the duffel bag had seemed to grow heavier with every mile. A brief, nervous sleep on a bus station bench hadn’t done much to restore her energy. She’d stopped briefly in a suburban travel center before setting out towards the highway to hork down a bag of chips, stock up on cheap granola bars, and buy a couple of water bottles, so at least she wasn’t starving or dehydrated yet.

Surreptitiously unzipping her coat pocket and slipping a hand inside, Emma fingered her small wad of cash, rubbing the worn notes as if to make them multiply. Thank heavens she’d actually cashed her last paycheck from the town, instead of putting it into her bank account. She wondered if Regina and whoever the new sheriff was had trashed her old apartment looking for the papers yet, or if they’d even figured out that she had them.

The thought brought a sudden, bitter grin to her face. She’d quickly stuffed all her belongings into her old duffel bag and fled the town to avoid the murder charge Sidney had been hinting at: but there was no doubt in her mind Regina would be far more enraged that Emma had absconded with Henry’s adoption file and birth certificate. Which wasn’t even illegal, or anything more than annoying, since Regina could easily get replacement copies of every document. It would just infuriate the other woman that Emma was able to take photographs and mementos of her son with her.

And just like that, Emma’s grin faded, as did any pleasure she felt at getting that one small revenge on Regina. Inside the same pocket as the cash was her phone, and now she fingered the dull rubber edging of its case, feeling the heat return to her cheeks, and the tears to her eyes.

_What’s the point of having my son’s photograph if I can’t call him?_ she thought, the grief rushing up her throat and threatening to choke her.

To distract herself again, she looked over at Jones, who was still placidly driving and staring straight ahead. The light from the headlights wasn’t bright enough to pick out his features, but as a truck passed them in the opposite direction, she caught a glimpse of his light-colored eyes, framed round with thick lashes and surmounted by firm, dark brows.

Emma swallowed.  Still trying to dispel her sorrow over Henry, she turned her eyes to the rest of the cab, to the storage compartments above them and the instruments on the dashboard. There was some kind of decorative pendant hanging from the rearview mirror, but she couldn’t tell what it was in the darkness. Outside, it had begun to snow, the flakes whirling bright in the headlights, although they hadn’t begun to stick. _Well…_ she thought with resignation. _At least I’m not in it._

Exhaling deeply, she slouched down in the seat. Somehow she thought Jones wouldn’t appreciate her putting her feet up on the dash, so she propped them up on her duffel bag instead. Staring out the window, lulled once more by the soft music and the muted roar of the engine, she let herself drift off.

 


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

* * *

She awoke disoriented, breathing heavily and scrabbling for her pocket to make sure the cash and phone were still there. But her hand got caught up in cloth, and she sat up quickly, banging her elbow painfully against the door.

Emma took a deep breath, gritting her teeth against a curse. She’d been covered with a blanket, and the cab was dark and silent, the truck’s motor off. Rubbing her elbow, she threw off the blanket and looked around, fingering her money nervously.

The driver’s seat was empty. Emma leaned forward and peered out the windshield; they were stopped in the deserted parking lot of some kind of rest stop.  Well, more just a trashy little gas station attached to a small convenience store, illuminated by a pair of feeble sodium lights.

Jones had said he wouldn’t be pulling over until they passed Boston. Pulling out her phone, Emma opened the GPS app. Sure enough, they were somewhere in the middle of Massachusetts, just off the interstate near Worcester; she’d been asleep for nearly three hours. They hadn’t been stopped long: although the cab was comfortably cool, the snow was still melting on the hood of the rig, sliding off in enormous drops. It had long since begun to stick to the ground, though, piling up against the building in soft drifts.

She leaned forward again, gazing through the snowflakes at the gas station. There was no sign of life, except for the lights from inside the convenience store; it even looked like the gas and diesel pumps had been shut off for the time being. She wondered if Jones had gone inside for some reason.

Emma shifted, the leather creaking beneath her, suddenly aware of how badly she needed a toilet. Made sense, seeing as how she hadn’t used one since before leaving the truck stop to hitchhike.

Staring forward intently, waiting for a sign of movement, it was a minute before she noticed the soft, intermittent buzzing noise behind her. Whipping around, her breath in her throat, she realized it was coming from behind a curtain hanging between the seats. That was the sleeper part of the cab: and with astonishment, she recognized the noise as a quiet snore.

The alarm faded from her veins, and slowly she relaxed back into her seat. So, Jones had simply pulled the truck over and gone to sleep in the back. Exactly, she realized, as he had said he would do.

The thought boggled her mind. Even if this wasn’t his rig, and he simply drove it for a fleet, he’d left her completely unsupervised inside it. _Why would he do that?_ she wondered, perplexed. The doors were both locked, but only from the inside. And although there were no keys to be seen anywhere in the dim cab, for all he knew she could trash the truck’s engine, rob him blind, and run off.  Or, if she were so inclined, murder him in his goddamned sleep, rob him blind, then just take the keys and drive off.

“Lucky for you, I’m not the type,” she muttered. Reaching over, she pulled up the lock on the passenger door, then put her gloves and hat back on. If he was fool enough to go to sleep with a perfect stranger—a hitchhiker, no less—sitting two feet away, he’d survive an unlocked cab for the few minutes it took her to use the gas station’s bathroom.

Cracking open the door, she winced at the gust of icy wind that slipped into the cabin. Hastily, she hopped out and slammed the door behind her. No sense letting it get any colder inside than necessary; she’d be getting back in shortly.

Emma trudged through the dark parking lot, scanning the outside of the gas station. Yup, there it was; a battered metal door with a “Men / Women” sign on it. She wondered briefly how awful it would be inside, but didn’t hold out much hope.  Even decent rest stops on toll roads were sometimes disgusting. The best she could wish for was that maybe there was plenty of toilet paper.

To her dismay, as she drew close, she saw that there was a padlock on the door. “Oh, come on,” she said bitterly. She’d been plenty of places where they kept the bathroom key inside, but a friggin’ _padlock_?  The discomfort was only growing worse, though, drifting in small pains through her lower stomach now, and Emma reluctantly turned to walk around the edge of the building.

The door jingled, predictably enough, as she opened it. Stamping her boots on the mat to get the snow off, she cautiously approached the register. A pair of young men sat behind it, laughing and paying no attention to her.

“ ’Scuse me,” she said, trying her best to look friendly. One of the men looked up; they were perched on a stools playing cards on the narrow counter. “Can I get the bathroom key, please?”

The man looked her briefly up and down; then his jaw worked, moving a plug of chewing tobacco around. Emma felt her stomach sink as the corner of his mouth curled.

“Well, sure,” he answered at last. The other man finally looked up from his hand of cards; he was clean-shaven while his companion was bearded, but they were both that low level of grubby she expected from a gas station attendant in the middle of nowhere, clad in faded Patriots hoodies and sneakers that may once have been white. “But you gotta buy something first, miss.”

He tapped the counter in front of the registered; under the scratched plastic panel, half-covering an array of sample lottery tickets, was a hand-lettered sign. _Bathroom for Customers Only._

Emma’s hand convulsively clutched in her pocket. She forced herself to smile, swallowing back her anger. “I get it. But… I’ll just be a minute. Promise,” she said, aiming for a winning tone. She could see the key hanging on the wall behind the two men, dangling from a nail pounded in between two cages of cigarettes, the word _Bathroom_ scratched in faded ink on its wooden fob.

“Uh-huh,” came the uninterested response. The guy chewed again, exchanging a glance with his buddy. Then he shrugged, grinning. “And there are a lot of things you can do to get that minute. The easiest thing would be to buy something, though.”

There was a soft jingle from behind Emma as someone else came into the store. She ignored it, sidling up to the counter a little closer. _Damned_ if she was going to waste a single dime of her limited money just to use the bathroom! “Come on, guys,” she said, smiling and hoping it looked charming rather than desperate. “Just this once? Help a girl out. I really gotta go.”

The first guy just looked up at her, exasperated, and shook his head. “You heard him, woman,” said the second man, eyes back on his cards. “Unless you’re looking to give us something for that key, it’s staying back here.”

His tone implied that more than cash could be currency. Emma clenched her teeth, disgusted, trying to think of something, anything, to say next—perhaps she really should just buy some stupid little thing. She craned her neck to look down under the counter, wondering which pack of gum was the cheapest.

But she was interrupted by the bump of a shoulder, brushing her aside.  A hand reached past her to drop a bag of chips and a pair of wrapped sandwiches onto the counter.  She had already opened her mouth to retort something, when she looked up and saw it was the driver, Jones.

He didn’t even look at her, his face turned towards the gas station attendants. “And a pack of Pall Mall menthols,” he said, reaching into his pocket to pull out a scruffy leather wallet.

Emma blinked: his velvety baritone voice had taken on a fairly convincing and totally unobtrusive Midwestern American accent. The first attendant grinned and slowly stood up from his stool. “All right,” he said amiably, punching the items into the cash register and tugging a plastic bag from below the counter. “That’ll be twelve-fifty, even.”

Emma felt her throat constrict. As the attendant turned his back to get the cigarettes, she saw Jones incline his head slightly; surreptitiously, he winked at her. In the darkness earlier, she hadn’t been able to see the color of his eyes. Now she found herself a little breathless at their brightness and hue, the light blue of forget-me-nots, especially remarkable in contrast to the long, dark lashes surrounding them.

He pulled a twenty from his wallet and handed it to the attendant. Emma took a breath. “Really?” she said to the attendant with all the anger she could muster, gesturing to Jones. “The only thing that matters is the almighty dollar?”

The man said nothing, eyes creasing as he counted out a handful of bills and change, then slammed the till shut. “If you need to use the bathroom, it’s around back,” he said, ignoring Emma and hooking a thumb over his shoulder, then holding out his hand to Jones with the change in it.

Her trucker companion took back his change, slipping it and the wallet back into his coat pocket, and shrugged. “Sure. Better to go now than to have to pull over down the road,” he joked.

Emma scowled as the attendant chuckled, then reached back and took the key off the wall; Jones plucked the cigarettes from the counter and stuck them in his back pocket, then picked up the bag. As the key was offered to him, he took it, nodding in thanks. “Be right back with this,” he said.

Emma waited until he was gone, the door clashing shut behind him, then turned to the attendants one last time. “Seriously, please,” she said, letting her desperation out. “You won’t just let me use it once that guy’s done? I swear, I won’t wreck anything in there.”

The second man was the one to look up this time. There was a toothpick perched behind his ear, and she could see some kind of faded tattoo on the side of his neck. His expression had gone from neutral to truly unfriendly. “You know, I’m starting to think the boys in blue could convince this gal just how serious we are about the rules,” he said evenly. “What about you, Matt?”

“Oh, I dunno. Maybe she’ll get out of our hair and off our property pretty quick. Or maybe I need to show her the flat end of my belt,” responded the first attendant, casually. He riffled his cards, then folded them and looked up at her. There was something sharp and cold behind his eyes.

Emma put up her hands, feigning fear. It wasn’t difficult. “O-okay. All right. Sorry.” She backed away from the counter, moving toward the door. “No need for cops. I’m going,” she added.

It was still freezing outside, but the pain had become jabs of agony through her whole pelvic region, making her almost double up as she sidled back around the building. _A toilet, my kingdom for a toilet_ , she thought faintly, feeling tears come to her eyes.

Jones was standing outside the bathroom door, a lit cigarette dangling from his lips.  The padlock had already been removed from the bathroom door. He saw her, and pulled the door open, craning his neck to look behind her. “Be quick about it, lass?” he suggested calmly, in his normal voice.

Too desperate to snap something back at him, Emma just nodded and darted inside the bathroom, moving a hand frantically up the tiled wall to turn the lights on. Her hand found the switch, and the fluorescents snapped on overhead just as Jones shut the door behind her. She didn’t even pay attention to what it looked like, just leaped toward the single toilet, fumbling for her belt.

When she’d finished she washed her hands, staring in the mirror at her own pale, hollow, slightly sweaty face. After all that, it was a pretty nice bathroom, relatively clean, with paper towels and soap and all. Obviously that was why those assholes kept it under such a tight guard.  She heaved a sigh of relief, wiping the water from her hands and pulling her gloves back on.

She opened the door and went back outside. Jones gave her a little smile, then took one last drag on his cigarette and flicked the butt away. The hot embers made a little _pfft_ as they went out in the snow.

Emma had to stop herself from sniffing for a stray hint of smoke. “That’s a terrible habit,” she said gruffly, hugging herself against the freezing gusts of wind.

Jones shrugged and reached up to replace the padlock on the door. As he braced his arm against the frame to hold the door shut, she noticed for the first time that his left wrist ended in a hooked metal device, rather than a hand. Emma opened her mouth to say something else, but thought better of it.

He didn’t seem offended by her remark, though.  “Aye, it is,” he answered seriously, and finally snapped the padlock shut through the ring. “Utterly disgusting. Other chemical vices don’t really lend themselves to a life of driving, though.”

Jones held up the key fob and jingled it, making a regretful sort of face, then turned to trudge back into the store to return it. Emma stayed put, slightly regretting her sarcastic jibe. She’d smoked on and off for years when she was younger, and missed it desperately sometimes. Odd, though: his truck hadn’t smelled of cigarettes.

After a short moment the door jingled a final time, and Jones came around the building, shoulders braced against the wind. No doubt the attendants had questioned him about that whiny girl who was trying to use their precious bathroom; but he didn’t seem perturbed.  He’d pulled the ugly mesh baseball cap lower on his forehead, and she saw now that it had some kind of military company logo on it, like the hats veterans wore.

“Were you in the armed forces?” she asked curiously, as they trudged back toward the rig.

He looked at her blankly for a moment; as she pointed to his cap, realization dawned on his face, and he touched the brim with a smile. “Oh. Yes, a long time ago,” he answered. He wasn’t wearing a glove, and she wondered how his fingers weren’t frozen off yet; hers were already going numb.

“Here, or, uh… across the pond?”

He laughed. “Yes, back home,” he answered, amused. Following her to the passenger’s side door, he reached up and unlocked the door, then opened it for her, its hinges protesting slightly in the cold.

Usually those kind of chauvinist tricks irked Emma, but with uneasy gratitude, she felt that Jones was probably doing it out of genuine politeness. She climbed up into the cab with as much grace as she could muster, and settled back into the seat, watching out the window as he rounded the engine compartment to his own side. No one had come out of the gas station, so their little subterfuge had apparently worked.

Jones opened the door and tossed the bag of food up onto the dashboard, then hauled himself up and into the driver’s seat with a quick exhalation, slamming the door behind him. Twisting in the seat and squirming to get his hand into his back pocket, he pulled out the slightly squashed cigarettes and shoved them into the same plastic bag. “I don’t even smoke that often,” he said, somewhat apologetically. “It just… seemed like good timing.”

Emma clenched her teeth. Maybe he wasn’t expecting to be thanked, but she did owe it: no telling what those sexist assholes might have tried to pull. “It was,” she answered finally, and added tightly, “Thanks. For… for not making that any more embarrassing than it had to be.”

Her companion smiled then, genuinely pleased. Emma swallowed, her heart fluttering a little as the expression creased dimples into his wind-reddened cheeks. “Quite welcome,” he said, dipping his head.

They were both silent for a moment. Jones seemed to be hesitating; then he finally spoke. “Now. I don’t want to put you on edge again, love,” he said in a low tone, making a palliative gesture. “But I sleep on the floor  back there, always have. So the fold-down bed above is free and quite clean, if you’d like to use it. I don’t have much more than that spare blanket and an extra pillow, but it’ll stay warm in here for a while, especially if I shut the curtain.”

Emma looked outside, biting her lip; from inside the relatively cozy cab, the whirling snow outside looked quite pretty. “You’re not worried about… you know, getting stuck in the weather?” she asked. As if he would have gone to sleep earlier if he’d been concerned about that.

Jones shook his head, making a confident little moue. “I checked it before I laid down earlier. Should be flurries through the night, but it’s not cold enough to stick to the pavement. And anyway, if it does, the salt trucks will be through before we set out again.”

His tone was so perfectly placid that Emma sighed. It would certainly be much more comfortable to lie down than to worm her way into a half-supine position in the upright passenger’s seat. And after the trust he’d already shown her… perhaps it was time to reciprocate.

“Okay,” she answered at last. The suspicion reached up and grabbed her heart one last time, though. “Just don’t—” she began. Jones’ lips didn’t move, but a smile creased his eyes. “Don’t try anything, all right?” she said, rather weakly.

To his credit, he didn’t roll his eyes or look exasperated, which would have been a pretty reasonable response. _If he was going to try something, he would have done it already_ , her mind said grumpily.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, lass,” Jones assured her gravely. Then he reached forward into the bag and pulled out one of the sandwiches, offering it to her. “I got two,” he said, rather unnecessarily, with a shrug.

Emma was about to decline the offer, but just the sight of food made her stomach awaken, rumbling silently. “Thanks,” she said reluctantly, and took the sandwich, unwrapping it from the clingy plastic. Turkey and swiss on wheat bread; Henry would have loved it.

They ate in silence, watching the snow fall outside. A car pulled off the highway for a few minutes, a pair of women clambering out into the chill. One stayed at the pump to refill the car, while the other went into the store, emerging with a bag full of goods. _They would have let_ her _use the bathroom for sure_ , Emma thought tiredly.

Jones reached around behind her and pulled out a lined bucket, dropping his discarded plastic into it; Emma followed suit. Wordlessly he got up and pulled aside the curtain behind them, fastening it behind the driver’s seat. It was too dark to see much of what he was doing, but she heard a clunk as he lowered the fold-down bed into position. Then he reached underneath, to the floor, and pulled out a pillow.

“Floor’s a little wider, so I stay down there to stretch me legs out,” he explained with a sheepish smile, and gave her the pillow. “There should be more than enough space for you up top, though.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Emma responded. A long time back, even before Henry, she’d once hitched with a trucker who had a sleeper cab so big he’d installed bunkbeds on one side and a tiny full kitchen on the other. But at least this one was tall enough that Jones could stand upright with ease, and given the width of the cab, she’d have plenty of leg room as well.

He opened his mouth, as if to say something, but shut his lips, gave her one last nod, and crouched down to crawl into the lower area. There were a few thunks as he kicked off his boots; a rustling as he shifted around, grunting a little, to find a comfortable position; then silence.

After a while, Emma stood, peering into the top bunk. As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she could see small windows at either end, the flaps over them closed at the moment. There was a step on her left, just above a mesh-fronted little cabinet, and she used that to climb up into the bunk, taking off her own boots and tossing them back down into the passenger footwell.

The mat was only about a couple inches thick, more of a sleeping pad than a real mattress. But it felt like heaven compared to the hard plastic bus station bench she’d slept on the night before. Emma pulled the blanket over herself and laid her head on the pillow, not caring that it smelled faintly of Old Spice, and closed her eyes. There was a rustle of plastic and a jingle as Jones drew the curtain back across the compartment, leaving them in peaceful darkness.

_You lucked out, and you know it_ , was her last thought, before she fell asleep again.


	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

* * *

The loud purr of the engine woke her this time. Emma opened her eyes to see light streaming through the windshield below. There was a little crick in her neck, and she stretched as far as she could, yawning. Then she shimmied around and dropped down into the main area of the cab. Jones was once again nowhere to be seen, but it was a bright, sunny morning, the sun reflecting off the snow lying on the berm of the road and the wet asphalt.

Emma had finished restoring the fold-down bed to its upright and locked position ( _Like a plane tray table_ , she thought with amusement), and was pulling on her boots when she saw Jones emerge from the store again. There was a thermos in his hand and a bag suspended over his left arm. He was grinning widely and shaking his head.

“Night shift changed over, and now it’s a couple of cheery little teenagers at the register,” he said without preamble as he climbed back into the truck, handing her the bag and opening the thermos. “If you need the bathroom again, I’d bet they won’t give you any trouble.”

Emma shook her head, then opened the plastic bag to find a couple of foil-wrapped breakfast sandwiches, still warm from a heat lamp.  She watched as he deftly steadied his travel mug in his lap and poured some of the contents of the thermos inside; the prosthesis he used as a left hand had a sort of mechanism like and opposing thumb on it, which he used to grip the mug’s handle. In the bright light of day, she noticed for the first time that the flat steering wheel had a stainless-steel ring mounted on top, with a rotating base. She’d seen knobs quite like that in plenty of other tractor-trailers, and had no doubt this was also a custom installation.

Jones finished pouring the coffee and offered her the thermos. Emma accepted it and poured some coffee into the cup-like lid, sniffing cautiously. It was plain old gas-station coffee, but at least it had some cream in it. A sudden longing for Granny’s good Arabica beans made her heart ache.

“Well, I’ve got to quickly complete my log book for yesterday, but then we’re off,” Jones said, sipping his own coffee and putting it down into the cup holder. “We should be in Scranton by noon, traffic willing.”

Emma nodded again. She suddenly felt terribly self-conscious, and more than a bit shy. It was one thing traveling across a couple of New England state lines with a stranger. But a daytime drive all the way into the Mid-Atlantic was another. Especially since, unlike almost every single driver she had ever hitched with, her companion hadn’t asked a single question about why she was bumming a ride.

“I, um,” she said. Jones had pulled a fat cloth-bound book from the center console, and was spreading it across his lap when he glanced back up at her. His expression was so open and friendly that Emma felt guilt strike in the pit of her stomach.

She gestured to the sandwiches and the coffee. “I can pay you back for this. And like, gas and stuff.”

Jones laughed softly, turning his eyes back to his log book. “Totally unnecessary, love,” he said, pulling a pen from his shirt pocket and making some notations in the book. “I assure you, my very excellent broker pays for any diesel this beast consumes. And I make enough money per mile to spare a few cents to feed a little bird I’m helping to fly west.”

He scribbled for a moment longer, then closed the log book and returned it to the center console. Reaching over, he fastened his seat belt; Emma followed suit, not sure whether she should be charmed or annoyed by being referred to as a ‘little bird.’ “The only thing I ask,” he continued cheerfully, “is that if you happen to meet any of my employers, to please stay mum about the fact that I picked up a hitchhiker. And certainly don’t add it to my log book, unless you want me to get fired.”

Emma shook her head “Of course not.” Then curiosity got the better of her. “It’s… illegal to pick up a hitchhiker?” she asked.

Jones shook his head, making that cute little moue again, and put the truck into gear, then pulled out. “Didn’t say I’d get arrested,” he answered slyly, as they trundled back out onto the road. “Just fired. It’s against company policy, even in places where hitching is legal. A few fellows have gotten mugged, that’s all.”

Well, that only seemed reasonable, although it said a lot about Jones himself, that he’d picked her up without a single question. “Do you like your job?” Emma asked, suddenly interested. Jones glanced over, still shifting through the gears as the truck bumped towards the highway overpass. She fluttered her hand, trying to be casual. “I mean… traveling all over the country seems pretty interesting, but I imagine every job has its drawbacks.”

He nodded thoughtfully, eyes on the road ahead. They picked up speed as he steered up onto the highway, checking his mirrors for traffic; he was using his right hand to shift and his left arm to steer, the ring fitting neatly over his hook and slotted directly against a band of metal on the brace below. _A neat trick_ , Emma thought, admiring the ease with which he navigated the gears. She knew how to drive a stick shift, but nothing more advanced than a six-speed, and she hadn’t driven one in years anyway.

“Sorry,” Jones said once they had joined traffic on the highway, and flashed her a grin. “Yes, that’s one sort-of drawback to being an over-the-road driver – I spend so much time in total solitude that sometimes it’s a bit challenging to keep up a conversation when I’m not just driving in a straight line.”

Emma hid a smile. “But yes, I do like it,” he continued, his own smile fading to a softer expression. “I haven’t got any family left, and most of my mates are drivers, too, so I just… drive from coast to coast, getting paid to see America along the way. Not a bad way to live, if you don’t mind sitting for long periods of time. And drinking a lot of rubbish coffee.”

The jokingly disgusted face he made caught her by surprise, and she laughed aloud; Jones glanced over, smiling warmly. Feeling self-conscious again, Emma took another sip of coffee, looking out the window as they passed what looked like a mall, the parking lot still empty of shoppers’ cars in the early morning light. That had been the first time she’d laughed in… _wow. Probably five or six days_ , she thought with wonder.

The road continued rushing by, and a comfortable silence fell over the cab. Emma put her feet up on her duffel bag again and leaned back, watching the scenery pass. It was still a long way to Pennsylvania, and an even longer way to the Midwest; that would give her plenty of time to think about what was next in life.

* * *

The time passed more quickly than Emma would have thought. Jones seemed more than happy to remain silent for the majority of the trip and listen to music, but they chatted from time to time. She knew very little about trucking (since her past experience hitchhiking hadn’t been conducive to nearly such amiable conversations about the industry), and at one point, listened with fascination as he described how long-haul truckers lived.  He had owned the rig they were riding in for a few years now, and received regular instructions on where his next pickup and delivery were.

“It’s actually really unusual that my contractor pays for many of my costs,” he admitted. “I’ve been doing this… Lord, nearly seven years now, and this is the first company I’ve been with that reimburses me for fuel. It’s probably because once economy went down the drain, they couldn’t find enough OTR drivers unless they offered that perk.”

He continued describing their next stop, some kind of general terminal just south of the city. When Emma inquired about where he lived when he wasn’t driving, Jones simply said that he hadn’t bothered with a regular address for a long time. “I rent a post office box in the east part of Pittsburgh, since I tend to drive up and down the East Coast and then out through the Midwest a lot,” he said, with a shrug. “And I’ve got a couple of mates there. So if I’m passing by, I’ll stop to get my mail and say hello, maybe stay the night if I’ve got time. But mostly… I just drive.”

They reached Scranton around noon, as predicted. Emma took a deep breath as they passed into the city limits. Not only had Jones been cheerfully forthcoming enough to reassure her that he was the trustworthy sort… but he also still hadn’t inquired about how far she was planning to ride along. And she’d been too contentedly distracted to think about it.

He steered them around the city on the freeway. As they were approaching the regional airport, he suddenly clicked on the turn signal, and began slowing to exit. Emma had taken out her book, and looked up to see that they were approaching a T-junction braced by a scrim of bare trees, softened beyond by the folds of low rolling hills.

“Is… is this where the terminal is?” she asked, her heart fluttering.

He shook his head, concentrating as they turned left.  They inched slowly through one roundabout, then another. As they finally rolled to a halt at a three-way intersection and waited for opposing traffic to slow, he gestured up the hill. “There’s a pretty nice truck stop here,” he explained, “and if you don’t mind, I’ll drop you there for a couple of hours. I can’t take you to the terminal, after all: if someone starts chatting, and word gets back to my broker that I had a passenger with me…”

He trailed off, cringing a little. “They’ll figure out you took on a hitcher,” Emma finished for him. Her stomach clenched.

Jones nodded with a grimace, gearing up as they made the turn and began lumbering up the hill. “I’ll go in with you, so you know where to find things,” he assured her. “There’s a restaurant, coffee, mini-mart, all that. And if you want to, I don’t know, use the shower facilities, watch some television, use the fitness center… you can.”

Showers! Well, that sounded like heaven. Emma pressed her lips together, nodding. She understood perfectly well why he needed to temporarily leave her behind. But of all the places in the world she wanted to be abandoned, Scranton, Pennsylvania wasn’t one of them.

He said nothing else as they pulled around the truck repair center and into a smaller parking lot, where he brought the truck to a halt and turned off the engine. They both pulled on their coats and hopped out. Aside from a few trucks rumbling around and distant traffic noise from the highway, it was quiet. Emma shouldered her bag as they trekked toward the main door. It wasn’t quite as cold as up north, but the odd snowflake could still be seen flurrying around.

Inside, it was surprisingly peaceful, not to mention clean. They walked around for a few minutes, Jones pointing out the major amenities.

“So, ah,” he said at last, turning to her. He looked desperately uncomfortable, and pulled a hand from his pocket to scratch the back of his neck. “I might only be gone for a couple of hours. But it could be longer – I still haven’t heard from my broker about where my pickup is going to be. If it’s right here in town, I might just… go get it while I’m already out, aye?”

He inhaled deeply and pulled out his phone, unlocking it and offering it to her. “So… if you want to put your number in here, and I’ll put my number in yours…?”

Emma realized a heartfelt offer when she heard it. “Sounds good,” she said, taking his phone and pulling her own from her pocket to offer in return. She felt her own nervousness abate a little as his face cleared.

They exchanged phones again. Jones stuck his into his pocket without looking at it, then pulled out his keyrings. Holding the keys between left arm and chest, he worked off a keychain with deft fingers. He let out a long breath this time; holding up the keychain, looking pained, he slowly lowered his hand and extended the object toward her.

Emma hesitated, but took it. A small length of woven paracord with a split ring at one end and some kind of military crest at the other, the keychain may at one time have been a deep olive color; now it was a faded sea-green, the fabric shiny and flat with wear.

“My brother’s,” Jones said quietly. “Leaving this with you… means I’m coming back.”

His piercing blue eyes were fixed on her, finely cut lips pressed tightly in an unreadable expression beneath the scruff. A muscle in his cheek jumped as his jaw clenched. Emma didn’t know how to respond. But she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he was telling the absolute truth.

At last she smiled, feeling sad that she had nothing with which to reciprocate his promise: to assure him that she would still be there when he returned. “Thanks,” she said simply.

In a moment of inspiration she unzipped the breast pocket of her jacket, snugged the keychain into it, then re-zipped the pocket, putting her hand over it. “I’ll keep it safe,” she added.

Jones smiled in return, the warmth returning to his eyes. Backing away with a little bow, he turned and walked out of the truck stop, swaggering a little as he bashed through the double doors to return to the parking lot.

Emma watched him go, her hand now clutched over her breast pocket.  Then she let out the breath she had been holding and turned slowly away, marching toward the showers with a renewed sense of courage.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who has been reading along, especially those who have been so kind as to leave kudos or a comment! I never expected this fic to get so much feedback, and I'm glad many of you have enjoyed it. I anticipate posting the rest of the story within 7 or 8 chapters, plus an epilogue; it's mostly written, I just have to figure out how to split up the chapters. Cheers!

**CHAPTER FOUR**

* * *

 

The showers were expensive—Emma had never actually been inside a trucker’s center before, and nearly choked when the attendant told her to fork over twelve bucks—but they were also surprisingly luxurious, sparkling clean, and entirely worth it. When she went back into the restroom to brush her teeth, she discovered that someone had even left a hair dryer on the counter, and she spent a solid half-hour just drying and brushing her hair, something she hadn’t done for probably weeks. What with the latest drama over Henry, Graham’s death, getting evicted, and her subsequent flight from Storeybrooke, it had already been five days since she took a shower.

Fluffing her hair, she poked through her duffel for clothing and settled on a pair of fleece-lined leggings and a long wool shirt, covered up by her favorite old red sweater. If Jones really did take her along to the Midwest, she might be in for a few very long days of sitting in a passenger’s seat, so she may as well be comfortably clad.

Looking in the mirror on the way out, Emma was astonished to see an entirely different woman from the one she’d stared down in the bathroom of that crummy gas station. Her cheeks were flushed from the hot shower, her hair curled down her back, bright and shiny from the shampoo and conditioner, and confidence sparkled from her eyes. It was almost enough to make her wonder why that woman had run away—why she’d given up fighting Regina.

Just outside the bathrooms, a small area scattered with soft couches and small rectangular tables, surrounded by chairs, beckoned to her. A Wi-fi sign on the wall and the presence of a coffee shop next door suggested that it was some sort of lounge; Emma spotted several charging stations set into the surface of the tables.

_Good timing_ , she thought, and flopped onto a fat loveseat, sighing with comfort. She dug into her duffel to find her phone charger—when she pulled her phone from her coat pocket, however, she was startled to see a text message.

A shock of adrenaline rushed through her as she hoped, for just a moment, that it was Henry.  Then she saw the name of the sender: _Killian_. Emma stared blankly at the screen; the message had been sent only a few minutes before. “Uh,” she said, bemused, and unlocked the phone.

Oh. The surname on the text message was Jones. “Oops,” she said under her breath. She’d forgotten the poor man’s first name already. _Done offloading_ , said the message. _Next trailer coming here, I’m waiting for it to show. Should be back in the next 2 hours ish._

And then, to her great amusement: _:)_

Emma chuckled. “Didn’t take you for a smiley-face kind of guy,” she murmured, smiling. Opening her phone’s keyboard, she typed out a return message. _No hurry. This place is great. Truckers have it made in the shade_.

She hesitated, then added a little winking emoji to the end, and hit Send before she could rethink it. Then she plugged the phone in and dug into her duffel to retrieve a novel.

The battered old thing was something she’d picked up in a little free roadside library in Boston one time, and carried with her ever since. She’d been reading it on the ride down from Massachusetts, but hadn’t gotten far. It was a rollicking tale of archaeologists searching for a lost Anasazi city out west, and although she had no doubt that the more supernatural elements of the story were essentially nonsense white-people appropriations, it was still a welcome escape from present thoughts, a tale of warmer climates and colorful deserts, far away from a dead sheriff and a lost son. Descriptions of the Southwest did remind her vaguely of Neal, but she could push him to the back of her mind, pretend he didn’t exist: statutory rape convictions carried a long sentence, after all.

She only made it through another chapter or so before her phone pinged with another text message. _You should see the Iowa 80 sometime_ , Jones had written. _It has a museum and a movie theatre_.

Emma laughed, a little incredulously. “What on earth for?” she asked, under her breath. _Maybe next time_ , she typed.

But after a moment she slowly hit backspace, deleting the message. Was that… too flirty? Emma couldn’t tell. Thus far, it seemed as if Jones was helping her along purely out of the goodness of his heart. She didn’t want that to change anytime soon. _That’s cool af_ , she typed instead, with a sunglasses emoji. There: much better.

She leaned back into the couch, laying her head back to stare at the motionless ceiling fans above. Unable to help herself, she indulged for a moment in the idea of her new acquaintance and (friend? no, they barely knew one another) de facto chauffeur as the object of flirtation. He was a good-looking man, no denying it. Between the beautiful eyes and the long legs— _and that booty_ , her traitorous mind added slyly—Emma would rank Killian Jones amongst the top five guys she’d seen this year.

But more than that, there was something about his quiet, confident manner that suggested a fascinating layer yet to be revealed. Perhaps it was merely the details of a past life that hadn’t surfaced; something to do with his brother, and the armed forces?

Biting her lip, Emma sat up and carefully took the little keychain out of the breast pocket of her coat, gingerly turning it over in her fingers to look at it again. The stitching on the military crest was still well-preserved, although faded, flat, and shiny like the paracord. A curved line of miniscule text reading _Opn. Enduring Freedom_ surmounted what she thought was a unit crest, while a second line of text below the crest, curved in the opposite direction, read _R. M. 51 st Btn._

Curiosity overcame her. Emma pulled up the browser on her phone and typed “Opn. Enduring Freedom” into the search bar. The name sounded familiar: she knew it was one of those modern wars in the Middle East, but beyond that, couldn’t remember when or exactly where.

The results scrolled down, and she saw it was an early-aughts involvement in Iraq, mainly American forces but also… “Royal Marines,” she breathed, her thumb automatically caressing the little crest.

Suddenly she became conscious that she was, or at least could be, taking an undeserved peek into a very private part of Jones’ life: especially considering the fact that his brother was plainly either dead or deeply estranged from him. Swallowing, Emma closed the browser on her phone, wondering why Jones would have given her—a total stranger—such a treasured possession, merely to assure her he’d be coming back for her. Heat flooded her cheeks as she carefully tucked the keychain back into the pocket.

Another hour or so passed peacefully as she read her book again. Just as it was getting good—the archaeologists had found the lost city!—her stomach rumbled. Emma realized it had been several hours since that breakfast sandwich.

Unwilling to leave all her earthly possessions unsupervised, Emma hoiked up her duffel, shoved her phone and charger into it, and trudged over to the little mini-mart in the middle of the travel center. Luckily she still had the water bottles, and like any American public accommodation, there were a ton of water fountains; she wouldn’t go thirsty any time soon.  However, food was another matter.

She spotted a small microwave off to one side of the mini-mart, and eagerly moved toward the aisle with easy-cook meals.  A few minutes later, she was heating up a takeaway container of reconstituted peanut noodles. _Only two dollars!_ her mind screamed in victory.

Wrapping the little box in paper towels, she grabbed some chopsticks and plunked right back down in the same couch back in the lounge. The noodles were ambrosial, hot and creamy and redolent of salty peanuts and absolutely hers. Emma thought she probably hadn’t felt this content even once in the last week.

It seemed to be a slow day at the travel center: only a few people passed through as she slurped down the noodles.  A flannel-clad man strolled into the lounge, and for an instant Emma thought it might be Jones.  But of course it wasn’t.  She studied the stranger.  He was older, of the same lanky body type but with less catlike grace and more… clomping.  His shirt was untucked, his boots scuffed, and his plump down vest was stained on the front, perhaps the result of greasy, oil-slick hands.

The comparison was unavoidable.  Sure, Jones had the sort of calloused, stained nailbeds of a man who knew his way around an engine. But his fingers were clean, at least. And he seemed to be a neat dresser: no flamboyant belt buckles or string ties, just a pendant necklace tucked into his shirt and functional watch on his wrist, together with obviously well-cared-for clothes and boots.  Moreover, Emma had noticed that sometime between his going to bed the night before, and coming back to the truck with the coffees and sandwiches in the morning, he’d unobtrusively changed both undershirt and flannel shirt.

_Which is more than I did_ , she thought with amusement.

* * *

Not much later, she switched to another couch to watch a hockey game. The closest professional team to Storeybrooke had been all the way down in Boston, so it wasn’t as if Emma cared one way or another about the teams currently playing. But she liked the nonstop action: it was like soccer, but with more bashing and yelling and fighting.

The game had just entered the second period when she glanced over. Cool gratitude and relief trickled through her chest as she recognized Jones—it was really him this time—entering through the front doors, carrying a gym bag over his shoulder, hands shoved into his vest pockets. She smiled; his cheeks and ears were a charming pink from the cold outside.

He crossed the hushed central rotunda in a few long strides, looking around. Emma got up and was about to call out to him when his eyes found her… and slid right past.

She watched, openmouthed, as he continued to peer around, frowning. Then he turned and headed toward the restaurant.

Hastily, Emma hopped forward. “Mr. Jones!” she called, jogging toward him. “Sorry—over here!”

She reached him just as he turned around. The light in the rotunda was growing lower, and it shone directly in his face, the bright rays giving his blue eyes the clear aquamarine glow of island waters.  She paused in front of him, made a little breathless by the sharp lines of his jaw and strong brows, and the tiny spray of freckles across one cheek.

He, too, was frozen, those remarkable eyes wide and soft, perusing her face, his lips parted in… what? Astonishment? His jaw twitched, as if he wanted to say something but couldn’t.

“What?” Emma asked, her nerves twinging. “Did you… did something go wrong?”

At last Jones recovered himself, shaking his head. “No, no. Everything’s fine. Just, ah…” His voice suddenly croaked and he cleared his throat, smiling crookedly, then finished, “No need for formalities, lass. ‘Killian’ will do.”

Emma nodded, her self-consciousness fading. “Killian it is, then,” she said softly, and stuck her hand out. “Not that I was worried, but… thanks for not leaving me behind, Killian.”

He blinked, but took her hand, giving it a firm shake before returning his own hand to his pocket. “Of course. You’re most welcome,” he answered warmly. But his expression became mildly perturbed, a line forming between his brows.

Emma swallowed.  His eyes were asking the question she didn’t want to answer: _You’ve been left behind before, haven’t you?_

Unwilling (and unable) to deny it, she bit her lip and forced a glare. “Would’ve been nice to have a warning about the expensive showers, though,” she said, with as much sarcastic vocal fry as she could manage, and stepped backwards, toward the lounge.

To her relief, his expression relaxed, and he followed her. “Why, how much are they now? It’s been so long since I had to actually pay for one…”

She told him, and he whistled. “You must be joking,” he said incredulously, as if offended. “It would be cheaper just to buy the extra two hundred gallons of diesel. Bloodsuckers.”

Emma shook her head, laughing, and reached down to unplug her phone, then stow away the cables. “Unfortunately, I don’t have any need for two hundred gallons of diesel, since you turned me down on gas money,” she said dryly, in her normal voice, and he grinned. “So? Onwards to Topeka?”

“Well, after I get a shower of me own,” Jones protested.

Emma wrinkled her nose. “Yeah, that’s a good idea,” she informed him, enjoying the way his cheeks flushed when he laughed.

Gesturing towards the showers by way of explanation, still charmingly pink about the ears, he trooped off, gym bag swinging. She sat down on the couch abruptly, watching him go; posture relaxed, steps long and easy. He carried himself well: not necessarily as ramrod-straight as she might expect from a former member of the military, but shoulders back and head up, walking with purpose.

_Don’t_ , her mind said quietly. _Don’t even._

“I’ll do what I want,” Emma muttered in response, darkly.

Burying her nose in her book again, she managed to block out her surroundings. The heat from her shower had long since faded, and she wrapped herself in her musty coat— _maybe I should use the laundry facilities at the next place_ , she mused. The descriptions of the book captured her, and soon she was entranced with the quiet of a bright desert, the susurrus of sand through red canyon walls, and the whisper of insects on a hot wind.

The hockey game was still going on, but she ignored it, the sounds faint, the white ice and dark-clothed players a distant illusion in the corner of her vision. Another traveler flopped down nearby, coffee in hand, to watch. Thankfully they said nothing, and Emma paid them no attention. She knew how the book ended, but it never stopped her heart from racing at particularly exciting passages.

It took a light touch on her shoulder before she tore her attention away. Jones was smiling; “Good story?” he asked. He’d changed again, but this time to a thick hooded jacket and v-necked t-shirt, revealing an attractively furry bit of chest and a pair of narrow collarbones. His necklace was a tiny lump hiding just under the low collar of the shirt; still no telling what the pendant was.

“Very,” Emma answered, her cheeks burning slightly. Dog-earing the page she’d left off on, she shoved the book into her bag and gestured to the seat opposite. “Do you want to relax for a bit, or…?”

Her companion shook his head definitely. “No, I’d rather be moving,” he answered, hiking his gym bag a little higher. With another flash of a grin, he added, “I can sit for a few hours on the road.” 

The omnipresent baseball cap was in his hand, his dark hair shining damp and neatly combed under the fluorescent lights. He’d shaved, too, leaving a firm chin and those finely cut lips open to her perusal. Emma felt for a moment that she might understand why he’d been speechless at seeing her earlier: he easily looked five or ten years younger than before, his arched cheekbones still gently flushed.

She swallowed back her appreciations, though, and rose, trying to smile in return. She pulled on her tuque and coat as they strode across the rotunda, out the door, and into the parking lot. He’d parked further away this time, in a larger lot full of trucks; as they drew closer to his rig, she noticed that the trailer was different: a long silver cylinder, rather than a box, with large, colorful stickers affixed to the forward area.

“Different cargo, huh?” she remarked curiously.

Jones nodded, looking pleased, and slapped the baseball hat casually back atop his head. “Mm, yes. LNG, to be taken west for use in other production operations. Good shipment, if you don’t mind transporting for upstream commerce. Haz-mat, though, so it’ll be interesting getting it through the routes I’d planned to take—there’s tunnels everywhere in the good old Steel City.”

Emma had understood only about half of that statement, and made a noncommittal noise in response. She waited as he unlocked her side of the truck— _her_ side! as if they’d been traveling together long enough for her to claim such a thing—then clambered in.

“May I ask a question, though?” Jones said, upon climbing into his side of the truck, setting down his gym bag and reaching down to put the key in the ignition, then start the truck. Emma felt a tremor of nerves, but nodded. “How on earth did you make those little faces in your text messages?” Jones asked. “They were really cute.”

Caught by surprise (and relief), Emma laughed. She pulled out her phone and opened the settings app, then showed it to him. “Well, on my phone, you just add a new keyboard. Other phones, I’m not sure. My son loves them – they’re called ‘emojis,’ and there’s about a zillion.”

He had his phone out and was playing with it, adding the extra keyboard, before Emma realized what she’d said. Her heart convulsed: Henry hadn’t just gotten her addicted to using the silly little message icons, but had also been the one to show her how to use them. _They’re so great, Mom_ , she remembered him saying with enthusiasm, his eyes bright. _No one ever needs to try and guess the mood behind your words!_

To her relief, it seemed as if Jones hadn’t noticed, still tapping on his phone; and after a moment, her own phone buzzed with a text message. It was a string of little emojis: a happy face, a tractor-trailer, a cup of coffee… and a little shower head, with water coming out. Emma snorted, then laughed.

“Truck stop story, huh?” she said.

“Well, maybe not the coffee. This time,” Jones answered, grinning. His eyes carried a mild curiosity, but he said no more. She smiled back at him, grateful.

The engine having started, he rose and crouched in the middle compartment, emptying his gym bag methodically. She noticed that he was meticulous about where its contents went: shampoo, soap, razor, and shaving cream into a small upper cabinet, old clothes into a sealed plastic travel bag. There seemed to be little compartments for everything, and she said as much.

“Oh, aye,” he replied. “Like I said this morning, lots of OTRs spend a couple of months or more living out of their rigs, so even the standards are designed this way now.”

“And yours is a custom model, I take it?” Emma said, amused.

Jones frowned mildly and shook his head. He closed the curtain to the back bay and flumped into his seat, clicking the seatbelt into place. “No, I bought her off the lot. I’ve just made some _minor_ additions here and there,” he said. He tapped the ring on top of the steering wheel by way of illustration, then reached up to the rearview mirror, setting the ancient air freshener and decorative pendant swinging with the flick of a finger.

Emma squinted against the piercing afternoon sun; when she finally made out what the pendant was, her jaw dropped. “No,” she said, giving him an exasperated glance. “You can’t be serious.”

Jones broke into a grin and gave her an irreverent little salute with his left hand, its metal gleaming in the bright light. “Well, when a colorful moniker comes one’s way…” he said, with a shrug.

He was so purposefully casual about the little gold skull-and-crossbones hanging from the rearview mirror—although plainly proud of it, Emma thought—that she felt her heart lurch with admiration. “Should I call you ‘Captain,’ then?” she asked, giggling. She wondered how many people had even been in the cab of this truck, and seen the pendant.  It couldn’t be that many.

“No,” Jones said, in an almost scolding tone, his brows thunderous with fake irritation. “I told you, no formalities. Not even for co-pilots.”

_Speaking of co-pilots…_ Emma thought, still laughing.  Either he had already planned his route while waiting back at the terminal, or he knew it so well he didn’t need it, because he didn’t bother pulling out any kind of map or GPS; just shifted into gear and pulled out. Emma waited until they had once more merged onto the highway, in deference to his concentration, before speaking again.

“So I’ve been pondering,” she asked, still aiming for a casual tone, “over how you said you might get fired if your bosses found out you picked up a hitchhiker. And… you went through all the rigamarole of dropping me off, then coming back for me, just to make sure I could keep going with you.”

“Uh-huh,” Jones said, eyes on the road.

Emma clenched her teeth, gathering her courage. “So then… why _did_ you pick me up in the first place?” she asked.

It came out too accusatory: she wanted to take the words back as soon as they had fallen from her lips, hanging heavy in the quiet cab and ruining the humorous mood. Jones didn’t respond for a moment. He looked once as if he might be preparing to answer, but his lips pressed into a thin line.

“I… dunno, I suppose,” he answered at last, with a helpless sort of laugh. He glanced over at her, eyes creased in a somewhat confused smile. “I don’t usually. And by usually I mean… ever.”

“I’m your first?” Emma asked, intrigued.

Jones shot her a narrow glance, full of knowing mockery, and they both laughed at the same time. “Yes, you’re the first hitchhiker I think I’ve ever picked up, at least as an OTR driver,” he said, with another smile and a shrug. “I dunno, lass, you just… you looked cold, and lonely, and like…”

He stopped again, huffing out a breath. “You looked rather like the last thing on earth you wanted to do was climb into the front of some randy old trucker’s rig,” he said a bit more slowly, “but you didn’t have much of a choice about it.”

Emma started, her breath seizing in surprise. “Anyway,” Jones continued, now quickly, as if afraid to stop. “I fancy I’m a bit better-looking that some drivers you might run across. Additionally, I flatter myself that me morals are above standards, too. That you could probably do worse. So… I stopped.”

He shrugged again, as if that settled everything, and broke into a crooked grin. Emma boggled again at the simple explanation. _How did you know I wouldn’t stick a penknife in your neck?_ she felt like demanding.

But then she realized the staggering amount of trust he’d placed her the night before, when he’d simply gone to sleep and left her to her own devices. He hadn’t just made himself vulnerable to Emma attacking or robbing him. He’d placed his life in her hands as to outside dangers, too: had there been an unexpected engine fire or extreme weather, or had someone else tried to break into the cab, Emma would probably have been the first to know it. She may have even been given the choice to save her own skin, or try to wake him, too.

Would she have done so? Emma wanted to think the answer was _Yes, of course_ , but….

“I’ve got a super-power, you know,” she blurted out. Her companion blinked, taken aback. “Not like, comic book powers or whatever,” Emma hastily amended, seeing his expression. “But… I almost always know when people are telling the truth. Or lying. Every time.”

A short silence passed, the road whishing by, engines revving and dying as they drove around. “And am I telling the truth?” Jones asked, his voice curious.

She nodded; when he continued staring directly forward, at the road, she cleared her throat, the urge to giggle forestalled by the deep, throbbing gratitude threatening to burst from her chest. “Yes, Captain,” she said seriously, “you most definitely are.”


	5. Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE

* * *

The light faded from the southwestern sky with the setting of the sun, and the cab grew dark once more as they zipped into the western half of Pennsylvania. Emma finished her favorite old book just in time; the moon had begun to rise against a pale blue sunset when she closed the pages, smiling absurdly at the happy ending she had fully known was coming.

Jones, meanwhile, had quietly turned on a public radio station and was listening to the news. Emma reached down to tuck the book back into her bag and shifted to comfortably lean against the window. They had briefly passed through part of the Appalachian mountains, where snow-dotted hills soared above a freeway cradled in the valleys and folds of the range. She had been through the southern Rockies more than once, and had seen pictures of the Alps, but even knowing there were bigger mountains out there she still found herself comforted and slightly awed by the long, uninhabited stretches of trees marching up and down into the horizon.

They were surrounded by a low stretch of hills now, the road moving down a gentle slope toward a town nestled in the valley. The news reader’s soporific voice lulled her into a thoughtful mood. What must life be like for the lucky few who lived out their existence in the middle of that mountainous wilderness back north? Even though the highway had been surrounded by forest on all sides, Emma had still observed streetlights and buildings here and there in the distance, miles and miles from the nearest  large town.

She sighed, imagining with dreamy content that she could go back for Henry someday and find them a home in just such a little hamlet, isolated from the world by acres of silent trees. _He’d be bored to death in two days_ , she thought with longing and amusement. They said it took a village to raise a child; perhaps that wasn’t precisely true for Henry, given that Regina (Emma had to grudgingly admit it) had raised him without the benefit of either family or nanny. But it certainly took a village to _entertain_ Emma’s particularly garrulous son, who seemed to have energetically befriended every person in Storeybrooke, children and adults alike.

The sound of the news being read suddenly faded, leaving the cab quiet, and Emma looked over, reluctantly letting her daydream fade away. “If you don’t mind, I want to make a quick phone call while we’re still coming into town,” Jones said. He was fiddling with the controls.

“Sure,” she answered, wiggling to sit up straighter in her seat. “Want me to dial for you?”

The road had curved around the base of the hill, leading onto a long, straight stretch in between bare trees and the parallel sweep of telephone wires.  “No, but thank you,” Jones answered, smiling. “It’ll be on speaker, that’s all. Can’t use the handheld.”

Emma nodded, curious. He picked up his phone from the console, eyes flicking briefly to it as he scrolled to find a number, then dialed.  There was a breathless pause, then the sound of a phone ringing. Once… twice… three times. She realized there must be a Bluetooth receiver somewhere in the mess of dials and buttons on the dashboard.

At last there was a click, and the sound of a woman’s voice. “Killian, my dear,” the voice drawled from the speaker, drawing the consonants out with exaggeration. “How is my favorite pirate?”

Jones laughed, eyes back on the road.  “Driving, as always, love. And how are the Dalmatians performing?”

The woman responded with a throaty laugh of her own. “Oh, _fabulously_ well, darling. We had a show in Chicago two weeks ago, and we’re opening a new branch in Paris next fall.”

Emma found herself paying rapt attention, amused by the woman’s old-fashioned enunciation and fascinated at the idea of her down-to-earth trucker companion being friends with what sounded like a high-class dog trainer. Or maybe that bit about the Dalmatians was a metaphor? Either way, the woman sounded like an actress from the golden age of Hollywood.

“That’s wonderful news,” Jones was exclaiming. He glanced at Emma, shaking his head with a grin. “Any chance you’re in town? I’m passing through tonight, and it would be lovely to see you.”

“Oh, no, that’s out of the question,” said the woman, with a sigh. “I’ll be awfully sorry to miss you, dear, but we’re on tour right now, the press release for Isaac’s latest novel. It’s made the New York Times bestseller list, you know. I’m just _exhausted_ of the cameras.”

Emma’s companion laughed again; she hid a smile as he rolled his eyes fondly. “I’m sure you are, Ella,” he joked, teasing. “You just don’t have _anything_ to wear, right?”

The woman chuckled at his imitation of her voice. “You know me so well, Captain,” she remarked dryly. Then her tone perked, and she added, “You’re more than welcome to stay at the house, though. You know where the key is.”

“I do, but I don’t think that’s necessary,” Jones answered. He paused for a moment, steering the truck through the left lane to pass a few cars, then continued, “I appreciate the offer, but at the most, I might just park the old girl in the driveway overnight. Bill and Eddy are both off with family for the season, so there’s no reason to stick around town too long.”

“Well, that’s up to you, dear,” said Ella tenderly. “Do tell me next time you’re in town, though? We’ll make a night of it.”

“I will,” Jones assured her. “And my deepest thanks again for the offer. Give Isaac and the girls my best?”

The deep, throaty laugh came again. “Of course. Mwah, darling. Talk to you soon!”

Emma, who had never heard someone unironically use the word ‘mwah’ in conversation, bit her lip to keep from laughing as Jones bid the woman farewell and hung up. She waited a few moments, watching him smile fondly, the shadow of a dimple showing in his cheek.

“So, uh,” she said at last, trying to sound innocent. “A friend named Ella, who has Dalmatians…?”

Jones broke into a wide grin, snorting a laugh. “That’s just a joke. She’s really a fashion designer. With three beagles and a husband, in that order,” he explained with amusement. “But like I said before… when a colorful moniker comes your way…”

“You might as well embrace it,” Emma finished for him, and he nodded in agreement.

“You know how it is with friends, too,” he added, with a shrug. Emma thought he might be blushing, but the inside of the cab had grown too dark with the setting of the sun to really tell. “As soon as one person in the crew has a nickname, everyone else ends up with one, as well.”

Emma made a _hmm_ noise in response, pondering. She really didn’t have any idea what that was like: she had never belonged to a tightly knit group before. Bouncing from family to family had tended to discourage her from making too many friends in any place. And the few close friends she had made… well, she hadn’t kept in touch with any of them. With sorrow, she thought of Lily; of that one perfect night, when it had seemed like she could have a bestie, someone close enough to be a sister.

Jones interrupted her thoughts as he cleared his throat.  “Well, anyway,” he said, sounding apologetic. “I suppose that settles tonight. I don’t like staying at someone’s house when they’re not home, especially not when it’s a house with thirty thousand alarm systems and everything decked out in white leather. But it’s a nice quiet spot to park the rig for the night. In the morning I can stop at my post office box, then we can be on our way west.”

Emma nodded, with another agreeable noise. She was surprised to find that the thought of spending another night in the snug little bunk behind them was reassuring. At the very least, it was safe, and she would sleep at ease, knowing Jones was snoring comfortably on the floor below.

The highway brought them to their destination not long after that, the truck trundling up a long hill and into the beginning of a long series of car dealerships, grocery stores, and gas stations, bright oases of light in the dark evening. Emma could tell they were coming into a city by the faint orange glow reflecting from the low clouds above, and as they slowed to a halt at a red light, she peered out the window at a huge, brightly lit modern hospital to their left. _UPMC Monroeville_ , said the neat neon lettering across its glass front.

With the glow of streetlights illuminating the cab, she had already noticed a soft expression stealing across Jones’ face, and now she could see his body relaxing as his eyes fixed on the brilliant hospital. Emma was envious and gratified at the same time; from what he had told her, this city was the closest thing he had to a home town. She thought about Storeybrooke, the familiar narrow roads weaving into town amidst the trees and the large wooden sign welcoming visitors, and felt a pang, knowing that Jones must be happily recognizing the familiar sights as they entered into his city.

They slowly made their way from stoplight to stoplight, passing more brightly lit businesses and restaurants. Jones finally spoke, his voice low and calm. “Any thoughts about where you’d like to have dinner?”

Emma opened her mouth to respond, but the surprise of being asked for advice sent her thoughts into a confused jumble. “Um… not really,” she finally answered. A sturdy stone-fronted bank on her side of the rig had a display blaring from its front sign, words scrolling across the digital marquee. The time and temperature blinked forth, and Emma, lulled by the comfortable warmth of the cab, was astonished to read that it was below freezing outside.

“Well, there are a lot of very nice Indian buffets at this end of town,” Jones offered cautiously, glancing at her. “Or we could go for pizza, pasta, maybe Mediterranean food…?” He gestured out the window; they were, in fact, passing a little strip mall with advertisements for a tandoori restaurant and a Greek restaurant side-by-side.

Her stomach rumbled at the dual thoughts of savory gyros and butter chicken; but it reminded her that he was probably famished, too. “Anywhere is fine,” Emma said reluctantly. She knew she wasn’t being particularly useful, but was helpless to make any kind of suggestion. “Just take me to your favorite place.”

To her surprise, Jones laughed. “Are you sure you want to subject yourself to my terrible tastes, lass?” he asked, teasing. “I doubt you’ll be impressed.”

The joking, affectionate way he spoke suddenly filled Emma with lonely desire. Here was a man who traveled hundreds of miles each day for a living, yet who plainly knew one city better than the rest; and at the moment, she wanted nothing more than to accompany him to a place he loved.

“I don’t need to be impressed,” she responded, and swallowed her sorrow, making an attempt to smile. “I’m so hungry I could eat anything right now.”

He dipped his head in a nod of acknowledgement, the faint smile lingering on his features. “All right, then,” he said warmly. The road dipped downward, leading past another series of strip malls and gas stations, and he clicked on the turn signal, steering into an exit lane.

Jones surprised her again: when they subsequently pulled off the main road, it was into the parking lot of an ugly, squat little green-roofed brick building, wedged between an auto body shop and a garage that advertised car detailing. Emma blinked, craning her neck as Jones carefully inched the truck longways against a hillside and turned off the engine. “Not much to look at, is it?” he remarked, amused.

“Ah,” Emma responded, somewhat at a loss. “It looks… homey?”

He chuckled and pocketed his keys, giving her a teasing little eyebrow waggle, then cracked his door. They trudged toward the building; Emma, busy pulling her coat close around her against the freezing damp, didn’t notice the name of the restaurant. But as they drew close to the front entrance, she glanced up. Her mouth dropped open.

She looked over at Jones; he was biting his lip, plainly enjoying her reaction. Emma looked up again at the enormous smiling… “A cookie?” she asked, blankly. Yes, it was a circular neon sign the size of a small car, but in the shape of what was ostensibly a frosted cookie with a jovial icing smile.

He nodded with a grin and reached forward and opened the front door for her, gesturing politely for her to precede him. “Local chain,” he explained with a shrug, and shivered as the door swished shut behind them. “It’s sort of their mascot. Cheery, eh?”

Inside, the restaurant was much more welcoming than the exterior suggested. Wood flooring beneath their feet and soft incandescent light made the lobby feel rather like a living room, albeit one with a glass counter, beneath which were displayed a number of fluffy pies and flaky pastries. “Hi there! Welcome!” exclaimed a black-clad young woman, standing behind the hostess stand like the captain of a ship. Emma couldn’t help but smile back; the girl couldn’t be more than seventeen or eighteen. “Just two?”

“Just two,” Jones confirmed, giving her a friendly nod. The girl tittered— _Lord love her, there’s no other word for that noise_ , Emma thought with amusement—then pulled out a pair of menus and led them to a slightly cramped booth. It was late, long past the dinner rush, and most of the other patrons were also teenagers, giggling and drinking milkshakes.

“Your server will be right with you,” the hostess said politely, and retreated from the table.

Emma wormed out of her coat, squashing it into the corner of her side of the booth; Jones was doing the same across from her. He took off his hat and set it atop his coat, riffling a hand through his hair.

“So… this is your place, huh?” she asked cautiously, looking around. There were plants in the corners and prints of city vistas on the walls, and although it plainly wasn’t a new establishment, the leather cushions of the booths were clean, the tables well-polished, and napkins neatly rolled around the utensils at each place setting.

Jones made an agreeable noise in response, shrugging and picking up his menu. He regarded it for only a moment before setting it back down and gazing around with soft eyes. “I dunno, it’s not much,” he admitted. “But every time I go to one of these places anywhere in the city, it’s the same: looks the same, smells the same, all the same food on the menu, same sort of customers and waitresses. Makes the ground feel a little more solid under my feet, if you know what I mean.”

“Yeah,” Emma said softly. That was a feeling she _did_ know: sometimes all it took was a bleary chain gas station sign, and she was suddenly comforted by the memory of a reliable sanctuary, an island of familiarity and cheap food in the unpredictable life of a runaway foster kid.

Their waitress—equally youthful, equally chirpy—came by briefly to take their drink orders and recite the specials. Emma noticed with amusement that even the girl’s nametag had one of the sunny, happy-faced cookies on it. _The place for smiles!_ read a line on the bottom of the tag. Abruptly Jones’ text message of earlier that day, the absurd little smiley face, popped into her mind, and she giggled.

“What?” he asked, his expression warm.

Emma shook her head. “Nothing,” she said hastily, taking a deep breath through her nose and managing to summon her dignity. She offered a crooked smile of her own and picked up her menu, adoring the earnest flush that had once more risen to his cheeks. “So. What’s good here?”

* * *

Their boots scuffed in tandem as they crossed back through the empty parking lot, sounding too loud in the quiet chill of the evening. “Good dinner?” Jones asked, his breath misting away in a frosty cloud.

“You know it was,” Emma answered with a smile. It had been so simultaneously nothing like Granny’s and _exactly_ like Granny’s that she had found herself ordering grilled cheese and hot cocoa out of sheer habit. And both had been delicious, comforting in a way she hadn’t expected.

They had briefly chatted before their food arrived, but mainly they had just enjoyed one another’s quiet company and eaten. Jones had spent much of the peaceful meal looking around the restaurant with a soft light in his eyes that told Emma he really was delighted to be there. 

“Good,” he said now, pulling out his keys, casting a fond glance over his shoulder at the restaurant, its walls glowing off-white in the light of the smiling cookie. They climbed back into the truck, and were soon slowly rolling back onto the road. Emma pulled her jacket close around her, still chilled from the short walk between the diner and the rig.

“Thanks, by the way,” she said, once more feeling shy. The waitress had only dropped off one check at the end of the meal. Before Emma could stop him, Jones had wordlessly swept it up and strode to the register to pay.

He smiled. “My treat, love,” he assured her. He _was_ blushing, she saw as they passed under a white streetlamp, his cheeks flushed. “It’s where I would have gone if I was on me own, so… I’m just glad you liked it.”

As always, his self-deprecating tone soothed the sting of her pride a little. Emma had wrongly hoped her self-consciousness would fade once she finally found a ride out of Bangor: that once she was totally reliant on a stranger for transportation, she wouldn’t mind so much if he was spending money on her, too. She still hated it. But even though she still felt guilty every time Jones opened up his wallet for her, at least he made her feel like he was genuinely happy to help.

“I bet you would have bought one of those cookies, though,” she said, hoping to make him laugh. The entire front register had been populated with the silly things, decorated in all colors of the rainbow.

He did laugh, and she felt the clench in her stomach lessen as the lines around his eyes crinkled, cheeks creasing into dimples. “Probably more like a whole box,” he admitted, still chuckling. “I would have eaten them all by morning, too.”

Emma snorted at the thought. In fact, he’d eaten sparingly at the diner, with table manners equally as neat (prim, even) as his dress and speech; she could hardly imagine him housing an entire box of sugary desserts.

The cab grew dark as they putted down the road and into a residential section of town. Emma couldn’t stop marveling at how dexterously Jones steered the long rig down the winding route, his face calm despite the narrow shoulder and poor visibility. Then again, from the sound of his conversation with the dramatic Ella, he had been down this road many times.

“Where did you and your friend Ella meet?” she blurted, feeling her face grow hot, thankful for the darkness.

“Hmm?” Jones answered, distracted. Then he chuckled. “Oh. Well, to make a long story short, I made a delivery for her company that got lost at the terminal, and had to produce the logs to prove it wasn’t my fault. It was when she’d just started out in business, so she took it quite personally. That was the first and last time I ever had a broker’s customer show up right at the terminal to yell in my face.”

Emma chuckled, picturing a woman in black and white furs and sky-high heels stamping into a cinderblock building, gesturing with a cigarette holder as she swore oaths. “Not exactly a congenial start, then,” she remarked.

“Quite the opposite,” her companion answered cheerfully. “But once she realized it was the terminal manager at fault, and recognized a fellow Brit, she took me out for a drink as an apology. And we’ve been mates ever since. It’s… an odd sort of friendship, I admit.”

“Sometimes those are the best,” Emma said quietly, thinking with grief of Cleo; of a strange friendship that had lived barely two days, but had given her a lifetime’s worth of self-realization.

Jones made an agreeable noise in response, eyes sharp on the road. A cement road turned off the main route ahead, and he swung them onto it, the wheels rumbling pleasantly on the smooth pavement. It was even darker here, no streetlights to guide them and the only illumination from the truck’s headlights; _Private Property_ , read a delicate metal sign on the hillside edge of the road.

The house belonging to the driveway appeared before long; Emma hadn’t thought she made a noise, but Jones glanced over, the corner of his mouth curling. “Lovely, isn’t it?” he said, admiring.

“It’s big,” Emma agreed halfheartedly, staring at the enormous colonial-style house, flanked on the left by a full-size greenhouse and on the right by an intricate English garden. She could see a stone-laid path to a large gazebo in the back lawn, which sloped downwards into the woods.  Not her style of house—and too isolated. But it was immaculately kept, at any rate.

The driveway wound a full circle past the front door and back, a fountain sitting in the middle of the roundabout. Jones brought the truck all the way through the loop and halted, the cab facing back out into the driveway, before turning off the headlights, then the engine.

“Well,” he said simply. “This is our stop.”

Emma stared out into the blackness of the night, listening to the engine wheeze as it cooled. It wasn’t pitch-dark, precisely; she could still see the faint orange glow of the city overhead, and there were twinkling lights beyond the trees, evidence of other residences.  But it was certainly the darkest night she had seen in a long time.

“Do you ever….” she began, then hesitated.

Jones said nothing, and his face was little more than a dim black blur in the unlit cab. But she could hear him breathing, and could sense him patiently waiting, perhaps with his brows raised in that open expression she liked so much. So at last she continued, softly, “Do you ever get lonely, once the engine’s off and it’s this quiet?”

To his credit, he didn’t hesitate, although first she heard a quiet _hmph_ noise, not quite a laugh. “Yes, sometimes,” he replied, almost too quietly to be heard over the ticking of the engine. Emma’s heart wrenched: why had she asked such a hurtful question?

“But,” he added abruptly, with more of a smile in his voice, “I like the quiet. And of all the unhappy conditions a man can face in life… I can bear loneliness the best.”

Emma heard him get up, and there was a crack and shuffle of plastic as he unsnapped and pulled aside the back curtain of the cab. As he began the familiar process of kicking off his boots with dual clunks, then rustling around in his floor bed, she reached into her pocket and curled her fingers around her phone, her throat abruptly thick with emotion. He was right: there were worse things in the world than loneliness.

“See you in the morning, lass,” he said, and she heard the smile again.

* * *

She was dreaming; she _knew_ she was dreaming, her mind stubbornly aware that this was impossible.  But that didn’t stop her thighs from clenching, or her hands from fisting. The cave was more bitterly frigid than anyplace she had ever been in her life. Emma looked around wildly, past the glittering stalactites and banks of white snow, trying to find the exit. There was none; and she was alone, so cold she couldn’t feel her body.

Someone was distantly calling her name from outside the cave; a male voice, frantic with worry.  Emma slowly sat down on the floor and curled up, her chin touching her chest. She was too frozen to answer, her jaw uncontrollably quivering and her whole body wracked with shivers.  Huddled on the floor of the cave, she pressed herself to the rock wall and closed her eyes. If only she had a friend with her… then at least she wouldn’t have to die alone.

The voice grew louder, more gentle. “Just go back to sleep, lass,” it said. And abruptly she felt an arm reaching across her body, heard the _shff_ of fabric swishing.  She opened her eyes to try and see who it was, but everything was darkness.

Groggy and still shivering, she rubbed her eyes, squinting. Then the familiar smell of citrus and cedar filtered through her sleepy consciousness, and she realized where she was.

“What—” she said, her tongue thick.  Her eyes had begun to adjust to the dim light, and as the hand withdrew from the bunk, she could see a faint black figure moving against the blue darkness beyond.  She tried to reach for the hand, but it was already gone.

“It’s all right. Sleep, love,” said Jones again; his quiet voice was somehow both the same as the one in her dream, but different. His silhouette disappeared, and she could hear him faintly grunting as he worked his way back into the compartment beneath. A thunk, a brief “ouch,” and then all was silent again.

Emma sat up a little, bemused; her blanket was somehow heavier before. Reaching her hand down, she brushed her fingers against plump nylon. She realized he had put his own sleeping bag across her while she slept; it was still warm from the heat of his body.

“No, wait,” she said indignantly, and leaned over the edge of the bunk. “I can’t take this, you’ll freeze your butt off.”  The cab was frigid, and although the air was perfectly still inside, she could see that the windshield was ever so lightly rimed with white frost.

After a moment of impatient silence, followed by a sigh, Jones spoke, a disembodied voice from below. “I’ll be fine. I’ve got my coat on. I’m not going to lie here and listen to you shiver, Swan. They could probably hear your teeth chattering back in Boston.”

“But—”

“Lass,” he interrupted gently. “It’s my ruddy bunk and my ruddy blanket. Go to sleep.”

Emma opened her mouth, but couldn’t think of any response. Even thought he had spoken softly, his tone carried a hint of steely finality: he was not about to argue. There was a rustle, as if he had rolled over and turned his back on her, and she heard him let out a long breath. The horrible, lonely dream was still too strong in her mind, and she shrank back under the warm covers with a sinking sensation, torn between guilt and comfort.

She was too tired to resist any further, and already felt herself drifting off in a haze of warm relief. Tucking her nose under the blanket, she yawned briefly and allowed her eyes to fall closed. The last thought that went through her head was that she would thank him tomorrow.

* * *

She was trapped in the ice cave once more, but this time with a friend. Who was she? Emma didn’t know; the woman had soft violet eyes and glossy white-blonde hair, and she was dressed like she was going to a costume party, her sky-blue gown long and spangled with silver snowflakes. 

_You have to stay awake, Emma_ , the woman urged, he forehead creased with worry. Her slim warm hand caressed Emma’s face like the whisper of wind; why wasn’t she cold? _Wake up!_

And like that, Emma blinked and sat up a little, the top of her head meeting the cab’s wall with a gentle thud. She shook her head, the dream evaporating once again. It was still dark outside the cab, the night nowhere near dawn; she wasn’t as cold as before, but her nose and feet felt like icicles.

The absolute silence suddenly chilled her, and she rose to her elbows, pulling the blanket and sleeping bag tight. Her heart thudding in her ears, she listened to try and make out any sound at all, hardly able to breathe. But there was nothing, not even the tiny soft snore she’d heard last night, and her nerves began to jangle. _Dear lord, what if he’s frozen to death down there?_ she wondered, half-panicked.

All rational thought seemed to flee, and Emma found herself crawling down from the bunk, hissing as the warmth from the blanket disappeared all too quickly, despite her heavy sweater and socks. She crouched between the seats, too worried to feel foolish, and peered helplessly into the pitch-black nook under the bunk. 

“Jones?” she whispered, her hand wavering in the air as she hesitated to reach in and touch him. No response. “Killian…?” Her whisper was louder this time. What would she say if he actually did wake up? Emma didn’t know, her nerves frazzling.

Still nothing, though; she took a breath, biting back her dread. Carefully she let her hand drift forward, and her fingers bumped the rough fabric of his coat sleeve. She drew her hand up his arm to his shoulder, then to the back of his head. He had the coat’s hood pulled tightly over his hair.

With relief, she finally caught the sound of his breathing, ever so quiet, a bare hiss of air. But she could also feel a fine frisson running through him, and with every other breath there was a slight hitch as he shivered in his sleep. Hesitantly, she gripped his shoulder and gently shook him. He didn’t wake; and there was no response except a small exhalation, too quiet to be called a moan, but with the same mournful quality.

Emma sat motionless for a long moment, her hand still laid on his shoulder. At last something in her snapped. She reached up to drag both blankets and her pillow down from the upper bunk. “Fuck it,” she said to herself softly, and pushed the bunk up, locking it.

She knelt back down, and swallowed a curse as something dug painfully into her knee. Reaching down, she touched cold metal and realized it was his hook, laid behind him. Knowing she had no right to mess with his belongings, Emma nevertheless picked up the prosthesis by the brace and, twisting around, gingerly hung it from the steering wheel, the hook looped over and the buckles dangling.  _He’s going to be upset when he wakes up anyway_ , she thought with an internal sigh. _And I’m not sleeping with his friggin’ hand poking into my side._

Jones was scrunched on his side within the compartment, and Emma was able to squeeze in just behind him, spoons-fashion, their bodies just barely touching.  The cold was already starting to seep through her clothes, and with a shiver, she dragged the covers over both of them, pulling the bottom of the blanket down with her toes so their legs were underneath.

She froze as he stirred briefly, sniffing and turning his head slightly. But as she laid still—breathless, her hands clasped to her chest—he relaxed once more, with a wheezing noise that made her want to giggle. Emma turned her face into the pillow, inhaling the faint scent of his hair and wishing she didn’t feel so perfectly comfortable doing so.

Lying this close to Jones, she could feel the expansion of his chest as he breathe. He was already beginning to stop shivering.  Drowsy and content, her mind began to spin pleasantly as the blissful warmth crept back through her. _At least if he throws me off the rig tomorrow morning_ , she thought with bitter amusement, _I can start over in a decent-sized city._

* * *

This time, she slept soundly and without dreams, cocooned in the cozy pocket of warmth for what felt like days. Some time later, there was a bleeping noise, faint and only mildly obnoxious; she was too snug and relaxed to pay it much attention.  As her mind began to take notice of the waking world again, the morning light filtering dimly through her eyelids, she felt Jones moving next to her.

_No, no, no,_ her mind whined. _Just a little longer_ …

But he jerked, twisting  and sitting up on one elbow. There was a long exhalation, followed by silence. “Oh, shit,” he said softly.

The word jolted Emma to wakefulness; but she laid still, keeping her eyes closed, unwilling yet to admit that she was also awake. Unease crept into the pit of her stomach, even as she breathed softly, her body beginning to tingle with anticipation.

He said nothing further, and the cab was silent for a long while. She wondered what he must be thinking. In the close quarters of the sleeper compartment, she felt like a fool—crawling into a stranger’s bed in the middle of the night? invading his private space without so much as asking for permission? It was something a frightened child (or a trembling animal) might have done.

When he finally moved, it was with slow care, silently edging out from beneath the covers. He got to his feet and stepped over her, out into the cab. She heard little cracks from his knees as he knelt down, and the blankets were lightly adjusted, pulled up to her chin and tucked more snugly around her.  Then he was silent for another moment, just kneeling next to her. There was a smooth swish, as of a hand combing through hair. “Shit,” he whispered again, his voice ringing this time with disbelief.

Emma laid still, astonished, as he got up, opened a cabinet to briefly riffle through his belongings, then clambered over the driver’s seat and out of the truck altogether. The door closed with a firm clunk, and she was left alone.

Slowly, she rolled over, finally opening her eyes. It was still frigid inside the cab, but a bright morning light had dawned, suffusing the little sleeper compartment with a hazy glow. Emma stared up at the ceiling of the cab, tracing the lines of the compartment to try and calm her suddenly queasy stomach. What if Jones really _did_ kick her out of the rig here? She supposed Pittsburgh wasn’t much worse than any other city, but something clenched inside her at the thought of having offended him.

Sitting up, she gasped as a sharp line of pain traced down the back of her neck and shoulder, disappearing quickly but leaving an uncomfortable heat behind. _And of top of everything, I managed to give myself a really nice crick in the neck_ , she thought miserably.

Emma crawled carefully out of the compartment, wincing as the movement jarred the tender spot, and perched on the edge of the driver’s seat. It had to still be freezing outside, but she could see Jones standing at the edge of the wood, industriously brushing his teeth. She watched as he pulled a water bottle from his pocket to rinse his mouth, then spit in a neat arc.  His hook was still dangling casually from the driver’s seat, the metal buckles glinting in the sunlight.

Then he wiped his mouth, turned on his heel, and marched back toward the truck, head down so that she was unable to see her expression. Emma clenched her jaw, grasping the seat with both hands and steeling herself against the urge to hide.

The door groaned open again; she waited until Jones had clambered up into the cab before inhaling to speak. But he beat her to it, looking up with surprise. “Oh, sorry,” he said breathlessly. “Did I wake you?”

Emma paused for a moment, then slowly shrugged, not willing to lie.  “Well, the post office won’t be open for a couple of hours,” Jones continued, as good-naturedly blasé as if nothing had happened. “But we can go grab breakfast, and if you need a bathr—”

“I’m sorry,” Emma blurted out. He blinked and looked at her with wide eyes, in the middle of stowing his toothbrush back into his shaving kit. She couldn’t meet his gaze, and stared down at her hands instead. “I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have…”

She paused, and hesitated for what must have been a moment too long. Gently, he asked, “I suppose you mean for cohabiting the floor with me last night, love?”

With the act so forgivingly phrased, Emma managed to make herself look up again. Jones was smiling faintly, still not in the least perturbed. “It’s fine. My fault anyway,” he announced, brows raised, and finished zipping the shaving kit, then got up to stow it away again. “It’s been so long since I traveled with anyone that I’ve forgotten how cold it can get in here when the temperature drops. And I’m not used to carrying supplies for another person, either. We’ll stop along the way, get you a proper sleeping bag of your own.”

He offered a friendly, crooked grin before sitting back down.  Emma was astonished at how neatly he had wrapped up the situation: they had merely been sharing bodily warmth out of sheer necessity. But more importantly…. it appeared she was still welcome to continue traveling with him.

There wasn’t much she could say. “All right,” she responded quietly, almost wanting to cry with relief.

Jones flashed a glance her way as he took off his coat and plucked his hook from the steering wheel. Hastily, Emma bent to retrieve her boots from the floor, and took her time putting them on, hearing his soft grunts as he rolled up his sleeve and worked the brace on, the snaps of the buckles, then the rustle of his coat once more. When she finally sat back up, lightly stamping her boots, he had finished, his cheeks slightly flushed.

“Off we go again,” he said cheerfully, and reached forward to start the engine.


	6. Chapter 6

CHAPTER SIX

* * *

 

It wasn’t until Jones upended the toolbox, its contents flying everywhere as he swore so loudly she could hear it from inside the cab, that Emma finally sighed and cracked open her door.

She hopped out and slammed the door after, crossing her arms and shivering at the chill, rounding the front of the rig. Not that it was _that_ much warmer inside the cab, but at least there wasn’t a piercing wind, cutting through her coat and hat like they were nothing, driving tiny specks of frigid rain into her flesh.

“Bloodsucking spawn of a pox-ridden pig!” Jones was roaring. “Toad-faced, pustule-ridden congealed pile of _vomit!_ ”

He bent to pick up a half-used roll of electric tape and pelted it across the road, still swearing. Emma was impressed at both the soaring arc of the throw and at the creativity of his oaths. She hoped he wouldn’t need the tape at a future time.

He stood like a statue for a moment, breathing hard, hands clasped behind his head and his face fiery red with fury as he stared westwards down the road. “Uh,” Emma said, not sure how to proceed.

They’d been merrily buzzing down Interstate 70 towards Kansas City, both quiet and retrospective in the miserable weather, when Jones had softly cursed, staring down at his feet as if something was wrong. Then the rig had swayed abruptly to one side, jolting back onto the road; his _Bloody hell!_ had been quite a bit louder that time. There was a loud _bang_ from below, which had made her scream a little, and before she had recovered her composure, Jones had pulled over, yanked up the parking brakes, and cut the engine before leaping from the truck. He’d been outside the rig for nearly an hour, fussing with machinery Emma couldn’t even identify, much less offer to help with.

Now he whirled, dropping his arms and looking mildly embarrassed. He coughed, looking down at the scattered contents of the toolbox, anger seeming to fade. “Hey,” he said. “Sorry, lass. I, ah… got a bit carried away, maybe.”

Emma refrained from asking if he’d had any luck fixing the problem; that he’d failed was obvious. She shrugged and moved forward, kneeling down to pick up a few scattered spark plugs and wires. “No need to be sorry,” she said finally. “So… what’s next?”

He heaved a deep sigh, as if the world might end at that moment, and knelt with her to pick up more tools, throwing them back into the box a little more forcefully than necessary. “I think I have to call for a tow truck,” he said, crestfallen.

Then the ire returned for a moment, and he sat back on his heels. “If only I could get my bloody hands on that no-good, thieving _shit-stain_ back in Scranton who had the gall to charge me for brake inspection...” he muttered darkly, shaking his head.

“Is it the brakes, then?” Emma asked curiously. She’d helped him block the wheels earlier, but had gone back inside the rig while he rootled around under the engine compartment, readily accepting his curt excuse that he’d rather not have anyone in the way.

Jones looked up with thunderous brows, but they relaxed as he saw her genuine curiosity. “Yes, it is. I think I’ve totally lost compression,” he explained gruffly. “I thought it was a minor air leak when I first felt it, and that we could just limp into town. But there’s oil all over the crankcase, one of the piston linings has gone, and…”

He waved a gloved hand, sighing and hanging his head; he was wearing a heavy coat, but she could see his shoulders almost invisibly trembling with the cold. Emma could feel her own hands starting to go numb, and wished fervently she had any idea what he was talking about.

At last he sighed again, tossed a few more things back into the toolbox, then slapped it shut and rose with a grunt. “Well, anyway,” he said unhappily, “the short and the long of it is, like I said, I’m going to have to call for a tow. I’m sorry, this is… it’s never happened to me before.”

With that brusque explanation, he shook his head and disappeared around the side of the rig to put the toolbox back. Emma rounded back to the passenger’s door and got in, slamming the door and rubbing her hands together.

Jones got in, and to her surprise, turned the key to start the engine. At her noise of dismay, he turned, half-heartedly smiling. “It’s just the brakes. The engine itself is all right, far as I can tell, so no need for us to freeze while we wait,” he said with a shrug. “So long as we don’t drive off anywhere…”

“Oh,” Emma said, feeling stupid. “Right.”

As he reached down to pull out his log book—to write down the incident, maybe?—Emma pulled out her phone to check the map. “There’s… there’s a repair place not too far away that says it takes semi trucks,” she said cautiously. “Maybe fifteen, twenty miles away, close to the city?”

Jones looked up, and his face lightened ever so perceptibly. “Is there? Well, that’s good news,” he said, and went back to scribbling in the log book. He closed it, then pulled out his own phone, heaving a deep breath before reluctantly dialing. Emma could tell that he was far more grieved and angry than he was letting on, and wished again that she could think of something to say.

She turned away, watching out the window and pretending not to listen as he talked to someone on the other end; an employer, perhaps, or maybe just the same service place she’d seen. Emma pondered for a minute whether she should feel nervous: but what for? The weather outside might be disgusting, but Jones didn’t seem perturbed by the actual idea of calling for a tow truck. No, she knew without even asking that he was desolate over the rig itself.   _This truck is his home, after all,_ she thought sadly. _I should know what it feels like to have your home broken and taken away from you_.

After a few minutes’ talk, he hung up the phone and turned to her, jaw clenching briefly before speaking. “A tow’s on its way,” he said tonelessly, trying and failing to smile at her. “But it’ll be late afternoon by the time we get there, because there’s only a few places that take hazmat trailers and they’re all on the other side of town. So my guess is that we’ll probably have to leave her there until morning. Maybe we’ll be holed up someplace with real beds tonight, eh?”

Emma was about to jokingly respond that she certainly wouldn’t mind a featherbed; but then she thought better of it and just smiled back, not wanting to make him feel worse.

They’d been almost exclusively on the road since leaving Pittsburgh the day before, keeping on the road for nearly nine hours before stopping somewhere in eastern Illinois to refuel and stay at another truck stop until the wee hours of this morning. Jones hadn’t said another word about that night outside his friend’s house, much to Emma’s relief.  Possessed of a brand-new sleeping bag (which she had conveniently found for sale at the truck stop), she found herself liking the snug little top bunk, the inside of the cab quiet all night except for the occasional whish of traffic or babble of voices from outside. They’d both done laundry at the stop, too, so her coat and beanie smelled as fresh as the pillow and sheet in her bunk.

_I sort of miss the man-smell, though,_ she thought, with guilt.

She had long since finished her second novel, and for the last couple hundred miles they had been listening to books on tape as they drove; Jones apparently had a few dozen on his phone at any given point. Now they sat in the gradually warming cab, listening to the same book they’d left off with. It was some kind of mystery, probably with a strange twist at the end.

Emma only half-listened to it, watching the wind whip the sleet and rain around outside the window, absently scanning the horizon for two truck headlights.  A few vehicles had passed by, but a rig idling well off the side of the road obviously wasn’t anything remarkable, because no one stopped.

They listened to the book for close to an hour before Jones suddenly sat up and slapped off the radio. He groaned, rubbing his hand briskly over his face, turning to her.

“I can’t think in circles anymore, it’s starting to hurt,” he said ruefully. “Did you ever get that, lass? When you’re worried about something, and you can’t stop thinking about it?”

Emma snorted. “Yes, I have,” she answered, refraining from adding that she had been doing it nonstop for the past three days. “The book’s not doing me any good, either. Want to just… talk, instead?”

“Let’s do,” he said with relief; to her surprise, he leaned back in his seat and put a boot up against the dash. “Ask me something. No secrets in this rig.”

She grinned at that, pursing her lips and thinking for a moment. “Never have I ever…” she began, putting up her hand with the fingers spread, and he chuckled.

There were a hundred questions she would really love to ask, but Emma felt it was better to settle for a relatively neutral topic. “How’d you get started driving?” she asked. “Obviously you like it now, but was it something you always wanted to do?”

Jones relaxed, rotating his seat slightly back and forth, looking for all the world like a bored child at a library. “Well, I suppose I was born into it,” he said with a shrug. “I grew up with me old uncle, a mechanic. He was a horrible old man. Still is, I’m sure. But… well, he did more than my dad did, which was keep a roof over our heads and shoes on our feet. He ran a repair shop outside Kent, and I drove my first lorry when I was about eleven. Twelve, maybe.”

_Lorry_. Emma hid a smile. She’d never heard anyone actually use that word aloud, just on British television.

Jones caught her expression, and smiled in return. “What?”

“Nothing,” she said, waving a hand. “I just like listening to you talk, that’s all.”

It was Jones’ turn to snort. “You’d be about the first,” he joked. But he grew serious of a sudden, looking out the window. “Aye, I suppose I came by it honestly, though. My older brother, he was always wild about cars, too. He’d done a trade program and was driving and repairing armoured vehicles for the military, and talked me into enlisting once I’d finished school. Then it was my turn to go off and drive for the old bootnecks, barreling around Baghdad and Fallujah in Humvees and trucks and the like.”

Emma raised her eyebrows, and he laughed, clarifying, “Sorry, ‘bootnecks’ – the Royal Marines.”

Even though she’d already known—she had given him back the keychain shortly after they left Scranton—it still made Emma a little breathless to hear him say it aloud. “I see,” she said thoughtfully. “Still not sure how that led to you driving a huge tractor-trailer around Midwestern America, though.”

Jones smiled crookedly at her. “Yes, that. Let’s just say it’s hard enough to drive an American rig with one hand, love. Now picture me trying to do it with the stick on the left and the wheel on the right. I had the bug in me for driving, I just needed to find the right place to accommodate my, ah, peculiar talents.”

He was perfectly unselfconscious about it, bright-eyed and calm, having stuck his arms out to demonstrate the difficulty of operating a right-hand-drive vehicle. “I see,” Emma said, her mouth dry. She hesitated, then asked, “So that’s where… when you were in the Royal Marines…?”

He opened his mouth, bemused, then shook his head. “No, sorry. I meant….” He laughed suddenly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Didn’t explain that very well, did I? No, I more or less came back from Iraq in one piece. Not a scratch on me, to look at. It was, er… an accident after that where I lost the hand.”

Emma didn’t miss the catch in his voice, the hesitation and slight stammer before he said _accident_. But she wasn’t about to ask for more details.

“My…” he continued, then stopped. She had noticed his eyes creeping toward the keys dangling from the ignition, and they fixed briefly on the braided keychain. His throat bobbed, and he deliberately spoke with caution. “It was my brother who didn’t come back in one piece.”

_Or at all_ , his tone said. Emma couldn’t think of any helpful way to respond. “I’m sorry,” she said softly.

Jones shrugged, twisting his seat back and forth again, offering her a sad smile. “Thanks, love. It’s been fifteen years, so I suppose I’ve gotten some measure of closure. I just… sometimes it doesn’t seem fair that after all the shit Liam got me through when we were younger, he lost his life to a bloody land mine while my arse sat safe in an LAV, watching it happen on a grainy little camera.”

His voice had grown so low that she could barely hear it; and when he stopped, swallowing again, the whip of the wind outside seemed oppressively loud.  Emma fumbled for a moment, then was struck with a moment of inspiration. “So you came all the way to the States and started driving here?” she inquired. “That must have taken a mountain of paperwork.”

Jones’ face brightened at the change in subject; she was glad of it. “You have no idea,” he said darkly. “The idea of a British citizen, trying to get a visa to earn a CDL and drive bloody trucks? It was like I’d suggested riding a pink elephant across the border.”

He grinned widely as she laughed. “But thanks to a friend with a good lawyer, it all worked out.  And that was nearly ten years ago, so a bit easier than it would be today. I just got my citizenship papers a few weeks back,” he added, with a hint of pride in his voice.

But regret, too, if Emma wasn’t mistaken. She knew instinctively why. “Congratulations,” she said warmly.

Jones nodded his thanks, a corner of his mouth still curled with pleasure. A short silence fell; Emma absently wondered what he would look like in uniform. She found it all too easy to imagine him standing tall and proper in camouflage battle dress and boots, perhaps with his arm slung around a companion and an easy grin on his face, hair sheared short and eyes alight with patriotic energy.

“So,” she said abruptly, almost startling herself. “Your turn.”

He stared at her, then blinked. “For…? Oh, to ask a question?” he asked, and she nodded in response. He removed his foot from the dashboard, sitting up straighter. The wind whistled powerfully past the corner of the truck, and Emma imagined (or did she?) that it rocked the cab slightly.

Jones seemed to be thinking deeply about his first question, forehead creased. “Well,” he said, reasonably, “let’s start with: did you grow up in Bangor?”

Emma shook her head. Her throat clenched, and her gut was beginning to roil at the thought of telling Jones—anyone, really—the tale of her stupid, worthless life. But she’d opened the door; he was just walking through it. “No,” she answered, “and nor did I grow up in Maine. I’m from… all over, sort of. My parents gave me up as a baby, and I bounced around the foster system when I was a little kid.”

Jones made a cautious little noise and nodded. She took a deep breath. “For awhile I was a bail bondsperson in New York, but I came to Maine a year or so ago. Settled in this little town called Storeybrooke, out on the water near that island preserve,” she explained. “Pretty much the day I set foot over the town line, I made a bad enemy of the mayor—Regina Mills, this prissy, power-mad—”   _Bitch_ , she wanted to say, but that was too easy “—queen bee. Every time I turned around, she was getting me hauled into the sheriff’s station or the magistrate’s office for _something_.”

Emma paused; nine times out of ten, Regina had been doing it because of something Emma said to Henry, but she wasn’t sure if she could bear to tell that part of the story yet.  Jones was just watching her, silent and intent, kindness on his face. Emma couldn’t meet his eyes.

“So anyway,” she continued, “finally the sheriff got fed up with it and made me a deputy. At least if I was out with him writing parking tickets or sitting in the station filing reports, he could keep an eye on me.”

“That’s a neat solution,” Jones said quietly, smiling.

Emma nodded, but couldn’t smile back at him. She swallowed, feeling tears prick at the corner of her vision, and looked out the window. “Well.. it worked for a good long while. Regina stopped messing with me, I could live my life. I was happy there. Happier than I’d probably ever been in my life,” she admitted softly. “A couple of friends, a good job, and feeling like I belonged. And then… last week, it all ended. Graham d-died. Thirty-four years old, and he keeled over of a _heart attack_. At the sheriff’s station, in my arms. We’d just…”

Her throat closed, and she could feel the hot tears begin to drip down her face. They had finally finished helping the animal shelter volunteers clear the nest of racoons out of the back shed, and had both been covered in dust and filth, laughing and red-faced and cracking jokes about David, who had spent every minute cursing the furry little squatters.

She cleared her throat now, sniffing. “Needless to say, Regina made sure everyone in town suspected I had a hand in his death,” she said, her voice husky. “My landlord evicted me, Regina fired me, someone turned in a tip that there was ‘evidence’ in my apartment, something to do with Graham’s medications… Finally, a friend w-who knew things… he told me that I would get arrested if I stayed. So there’s the story of how you ran across me on the side of a Bangor highway. The end.”

Abruptly Graham’s face seemed to appear before her, smiling as he told her, “ _Thanks for your help, sweetheart,_ ” in that soft Irish lilt. The last thing he’d said to her before he died. Emma gritted her teeth, trying to stem back the sob that threatened to escape. Now his face appeared again, but this time, frozen in a torturous expression as he clutched his chest in agony, fighting for breath.

She sniffled, tears still streaking her cheeks, and let out a long breath, releasing the misery she had bottled up since fleeing the town. It wasn’t fair! She hadn’t even had proper time to grieve Graham: her friend; her boss; a sweet and hard-working man who had always believed in her and in Henry.

And poor Henry… he had loved Graham, too. Emma had found him at Granny’s and tried to explain things to him: but he had already been told that his crazy birth mother had murdered the kind sheriff, and a regretful Ruby had hustled him away before Emma could get out half a dozen words.

At least he hadn’t believed it. That much, Emma knew. _You couldn’t have_ , her son had said. She would never forget the sight of tears slipping down his face, his arms clutched around Ruby as he stared at Emma with confused eyes. _I don’t believe it, Mom!_

Now there was a creak as her companion leaned forward, and she was started to suddenly feel a warm hand on hers. His  calloused fingers folded over her hand with extraordinary gentleness. “I’m sorry, Emma,” Jones murmured. “If I’d known…”

He trailed off, uncertain.  But his voice was so soft and kind that it just made her cry harder. She automatically clutched his hand like a lifeline.

When she’d finally stopped sniffling long enough to look up, she realized that it was the first time he’d called her by her first name, rather than just “lass” or “love” or “Swan.”  He wasn’t _staring_ at her, precisely; his expression was too regretful and sympathetic to be called that. But with relief, she saw that he believed her, too.

“I didn’t do it,” she said anyway, her voice thick, and swiped some of the tears from her face.

Jones nodded, smiling faintly. “I know,” he said simply. Then he frowned. “Did you _walk_ from the coast all the way to Bangor?”

When she nodded in response, he let out a faint whistle. “No wonder you were so tired that first night on the road,” he remarked incredulously.

He reached down to his left and snagged something out of a pocket on the door, offering it to her. She was astounded to see it was a small box of tissues, cylinder-shaped to fit in a cup holder.

“You really do have everything in here, don’t you?” she asked, with a hysterical little laugh, and let go his hand to take a tissue and blow her nose, with a great honk that cleared her clogged sinuses. She supposed she should feel embarrassed, but somehow… she didn’t.

Jones shrugged ruefully. He turned the little carboard tube over in his hand, tapping it gently on his knee. He seemed to be hesitating. “Spit it out,” Emma said, and he started, looking at her with wide eyes. “If you have a question, ask it. I can’t possibly feel any worse.”

Well, okay. If he threw her out of the truck and told her to walk to Kansas City, she’d certainly feel worse. But she didn’t think that was likely.

Jones sighed. “Well.  Awhile back, you mentioned a son. I was just wondering… whether you had to leave him behind in Maine.”

Her heart suddenly quickened its pace, thundering painfully against her ribs.  Emma looked up to see guilt in his eyes. She’d felt the same way, asking about his hand.

“Yes, I did,” she answered flatly, gritting her teeth. It was the second time she’d abandoned Henry: first when she gave him up for adoption as a baby, now again, eleven years later.

She wondered what he was doing there right now: reading a book? playing a video game? watching one of his favorite old movies, perhaps cheering on Fezzick and Inigo as they stormed the castle with Westley, or making those adorable _pew! pew!_ noises as Luke Skywalker zoomed down the Death Star trench?

The tears didn’t resurge, though, and she sat dry and cold, sick to her stomach at the knowledge that whatever Henry was doing, it was in Regina’s house, in Regina’s pet town, and under Regina’s supervision.

“I hate that selfish yuppie bitch so much,” Emma said softly, making Jones cough and clear his throat with surprise. She waved a hand, forcing herself to swallow the anger threatening to choke her. “Sorry. I’m… I lied. Maybe later,” she said, knowing it sounded a bit pleading.

“Or maybe never,” he said gently. “Sorry I asked.”

Emma shook her head. “Don’t be,” she said tiredly. “Just… get a few beers in me first, okay?”


	7. Chapter 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

* * *

 

The name of the bar blared cheerfully from a green marquee over the front doorway.  Despite the cold, the door was thrown open, emitting a generous belch of country music and beer-fueled revelry from inside. Gaudy poinsettia decorations blinked from the front windows, a tinsel-clogged wreath dangling from the door handle.

 “The Four-Leaf Clover, huh?” Emma said as they trudged toward it, their boots crunching in the gravel of the parking lot, cars clumped tightly together at the far end. “Sounds like a fun place.”

 “Hmm,” was Jones’ only response.

He’d been quiet—morose, almost—since they left his rig at the repair shop.  Their tow had shown up not long after the awkward conversation about Henry, and they’d been at the repair shop until nearly seven. At which point one of the mechanics at the shop, sympathetic to the plight of a fellow trucker in distress, had kindly offered them a ride to the nearest motel, a ramshackle place called the Bluebird.

Emma’s offers to help pay for the room were, of course, refused: and a little more curtly than with her other offers. She’d sat off to the side while Jones argued with the clerk at the counter, and had used the motel’s pitifully weak wi-fi to check Facebook on her phone just in case someone back in Storeybrooke had posted about Graham. Nothing, though. With dismay, Emma briefly wondered if she’d left Storeybrooke for no reason. She pushed the thought out of her head, unable to bear the idea that Henry was there, alone, because she’d fled on nothing more than a rumor.

This bar was the only relatively non-terrifying place they’d been able to find within walking distance that served food this late. Emma didn’t mind—she’d been in her share of hole-in-the-wall joints, and kind of liked them. She sensed that Jones, being a solitary soul and somewhat picky eater, was less pleased.

Still, she thought if he tucked away a plate of fries, maybe even a couple of beers, that might help. Hunger never improved anyone’s bad mood. “Gonna let me buy you a drink, at least?” she asked hopefully.

Jones shrugged, his face downcast. But after a moment he gave her a half-hearted sort of smile. “Guess I could live with that,” he said quietly.

Inside, the bar was lively, loud with the clink of glasses and the boom of laughter and conversation.  With a start, Emma realized it was Friday. She’d completely lost track during their travel westward. Jones paused at the door, his face set in a resigned, blank sort of expression. “Come on,” said Emma, beckoning him after her. “I’m hungry.”

She stamped her boots on the mat, sighing with pleasure at the warmth as she took off her hat and walked straight to the bar. There were only a few empty seats. “Can we get food up here?” she asked the bartender, plopping onto an open stool.

“You betcha,” said the woman placidly, and with a glance at Jones, reached under the bar to pull out two laminated menus, well-worn and a little sticky. Emma noticed (with some relief) that both of the barkeeps were women, dressed in no-nonsense t-shirts and black jeans.

The menu was nothing fancy: roadhouse food, mainly grilled or fried meats, cheeses, and carbs. “What’s your poison, hon?” asked the bartender, in the sort of lush voice that betokened a longtime smoker.

Emma had felt Jones slide onto the stool next to her, as she craned her neck to see the taps. “Labatt,” she said firmly, then sat back. She didn’t usually drink beer, but neither did she have any interest in getting too drunk, too fast: it was nearly a mile back to the motel.

“The same, if you please,” Jones said from beside her, and picked up his menu. They were silent for a moment as the bartender sashayed off to get their drinks.  Emma didn’t have to look at the menu for more than thirty seconds; she was famished, and there were onion rings right at the top, proclaimed to be _Missouri’s Biggest and Best!_ Probably the greasiest, too, but she wasn’t about to complain.

She looked around the room, interested.  It was the first time in a long time that she’d been in such a raucous, crowded bar. Granny’s was great and all, and she’d enjoyed going out to the Rabbit Hole with Mary-Margaret that time Sean had proposed to Ashley, but neither locale reached any more than a low buzz of conversation, even on weekend nights.

A few young men, practically teenagers, were playing pool nearby and guzzling beer from a pitcher.  Across the room, by the jukebox, a several couples and groups of friends were dancing, cowboy boots thudding on the wooden floor. One woman was wearing a sequined shirt, which dazzled light across the room as she spun; Emma noticed with delight that her partner was wearing a bolo tie, with inlaid turquoise, atop a fringed button-up.

The bartender returned, plunking down two ludicrously large steins of beer in front of them. “Want to start a tab?” she asked, giving Jones a somewhat beady eye.

He immediately reached for his wallet. _Oh, what the hell_ , Emma thought. Quickly, she whipped her phone from her pocket and pulled a credit card from the slot on the back of the case, handing it to the woman. “My treat tonight, actually,” she explained. “He’s been doing all the driving.”

With an amiable shrug, the bartender took the card and left. “You said you were going to buy me a drink, not open a tab,” Jones complained, tucking his wallet back into his pocket. His tone wavered somewhere between mournful and accusatory.

Emma gave him an even look. “Listen, you’ve bought me how many meals now?” she demanded. “I’m beginning to feel like a kept woman, Captain.”

That made him smile, if reluctantly. “Aye, I suppose that’s fair,” he admitted. “All right. Cheers, love.”

They clinked beers and drank. “Besides,” Jones added, wiping foam from his upper lip and looking twice as chagrined, “here I am, acting like a spoilt child, when you’re the one who’s really adrift on the wind.”

Emma sighed and shook her head. “No, I get it,” she admitted, leaning comfortably on the bar. “I’ve never really had a place to leave behind, until Storeybrooke. And even then, I only stayed because of Henry. Your rig, though… it’s your home. Your place.”

Her companion was silent, nodding. Then it was his turn to sigh and take a deep draught from his beer. “Aye, she is,” he said hoarsely, looking down into the stein with an expression of grief usually reserved for funerals. Emma, tempted to laugh at the _she_ , nearly pointed out that the truck was just getting repaired, and that he’d see it—her—the next day. But Jones knew that.

He took a deep breath, seeming to shake off the melancholy, and smiled at her—for real this time. “So. I know you haven’t even gotten one beer in you yet, but… Henry. That’s your boy?”

The blow to her stomach was soft this time, less shocking than it had been earlier, and Emma swallowed. “Yes. He’s twelve,” she said, wondering for a moment _how_. It only seemed like yesterday that he was a precocious little ten-year-old.

“And at the risk of sounding, er, nosy…” said Jones cautiously, “right now he’s with his… dad? Mum?”

Emma snorted. “Appreciative as I am of the non-heteronormative nature of that question,” she said dryly, “he is in fact with his mother. His _adoptive_ mother. The one who…”

She stopped herself before she could say it aloud, taking a shaky breath. She lifted her drink again and let the beer wash over her tongue, numbing her further to the pain. Her face was burning.  Every time she told Jones something else, she felt like she was one step closer to being booted off his rig for good. First she’d admitted she was homeless and fleeing a murder charge… now he knew she’d abandoned her son in doing so. What if he knew she’d been in prison when Henry was born, too?

But with no food in her stomach for several hours, she was already beginning to feel pleasantly buzzed from the beer.  And abruptly, belligerence rose up in her. She’d done her best for Henry—she had been _protecting_ him when she left, just like when she gave him up for adoption!

“It’s Regina. She… look. Here’s the thing,” Emma explained desperately, as Jones’ brows shot up. “I gave Henry up for adoption when he was born. I was barely eighteen, and I still had a four-month prison sentence ahead of me. I couldn’t be a mother. So I tried to give him his best chance at life. And then _she_ adopted him. Raised him in Storeybrooke, never even telling him he _was_ adopted until he was almost nine.  So that’s why I went there in the first place. He was so lonely, so unhappy, that he nicked her credit card to jailbreak his own sealed adoption record and find me. He took a bus to where I was in Boston and _found_ me.”

She paused again, her breath coming fast and angry with the grief and fury.  Her mind conjured the memory of that night: the small boy, bright-eyed and smiling, standing on her doorstep no more than thirty seconds after she’d blown out her birthday candle and wished not to be alone. _Hi! I’m Henry_. His eyes had been fixed on her with such intense hope and excitement.

Jones sighed, yanking her back to the present.  For one panicked moment she was sure he’d get up off the barstool and leave. Why on earth would such a normal, well-adjusted person stick around to listen to her hot mess of a life? 

But he just put his hand over hers. “Oh, lass. I’m sorry,” he said, with a wry little smile. “No wonder you’ve not said a word.”

And for the second time that day, just the relief of having someone understand was enough to make her sniff back tears. “He’s just such a smart kid, you know?” Emma said, her voice catching. “He’s this little shooting star of enthusiasm and kindness and… and curiosity, and energy. One of those kids that when he gets an idea in his head, he doesn’t give up until he’s seen it through.”

“Sounds like a lovely boy. Like he would keep you on your toes, too,” Jones remarked kindly.

Emma gave a breath of a laugh again. “God, you have no idea,” she said wistfully. “But he’s so sweet. Thoughtful, and bright, and brave… everything I’d ever hoped he could be. Just…”

A wash of fiery anger passed over her, eclipsing the sorrow. “I just didn’t get to raise him, damn it,” she said, through clenched teeth, feeling her face go bright red.

Of course, that was the moment their bartender returned, planting her hands on the bar and leaning forward. “Figured out what you’re…” she began.

Then she stopped, peering suspiciously at Emma. Her eyes narrowed, she demanded, “Hey, honey. You all right? This one bein’ an asshole?”

She hooked a thumb at Jones. Luckily, Emma’s companion had the good sense to know a protective mother bear when he saw one, and he kept his mouth shut, although Emma saw him giving her an amused side-eye.

“No, no,” Emma said, laughing a little and scrubbing away the few tears that had risen. “He’s being very nice, actually. I’m… worried about my kid, that’s all.”

To her relief, the woman nodded and relaxed, with a sympathetic grimace. She had the kind of tough prettiness that seemed ubiquitous to bar mistresses, forty-something with heavily outlined eyes and flat-ironed hair, but with a kind sort of light in her eyes that Emma suspected came in handy when it came to tips.

“I feel you, hon,” she said, and gestured to the younger bartender, a big husky girl who couldn’t have been more than nineteen or twenty. “That one has given me no end of grief. Ran off on me twice this year, the little shit. But—” the woman shrugged, grinning “—kids. As long as they come home safe, guess that’s the important part, right?”

“Right,” Emma said, the word like shards of glass in her mouth. She picked up her stein and, with conviction, chugged the rest of the cheap lager, barely tasting it on her raw throat.

With an explosive breath, she thumped the glass back down. Someone sitting nearby whistled loudly. “Right,” she repeated, but this time with determination. “I’ll drink to that. And speaking of which, can I have another? Maybe alongside the biggest basket of onion rings you’ve got?”

Jones looked simultaneously horrified and impressed, but their bartender just laughed. “You got it, babe,” she said, picking up the empty glass and regarding it with admiration. “And for the mister?”

Emma looked over at her companion, who gaped slightly for a moment, taken aback. “Ah,” he said at last, and looked down at the menu, then back up at the bartender. “I think I’ll just… enjoy the company for a little while. If that’s all right.”

“Suit yourself, English,” the woman said, but her shrug was once again friendly. “Y’all need me again, just holler for Tracy, okay?”

Her rather sharp eye was fixed on Emma, who nodded firmly, feeling a little like her head was floating a few feet above her shoulders. With a snort, Tracy sauntered away again, pausing for a moment to slap off a running tap and pour a full bar mat into the sink.

“That was an impressive stunt, Swan,” Jones said, and she turned to see him smiling, the light returned to his eyes. “I trust you’re feeling a bit better?”

Taking a long breath in through her nose, Emma looked him square in the face. His striking blue eyes were clear, so honest and calm that equilibrium seemed to settle back over her. And she realized that this was the first time she’d talked to someone about giving up Henry since she’d first arrived in Storeybrooke.

“Yes. Much better,” she said at last, and smiled, sliding off her barstool. “Come on. Let’s get drunk and play darts. I really feel the need to kick somebody’s butt at something.”

* * *

They ended up splitting the ludicrously large basket of onion rings—Emma had to admit, they _were_ delicious—and playing pool for awhile instead, both dart boards being occupied by a gaggle of youngsters.  The pool tables and other games were in a small game room off to the side of the bar, the light low and the sound from the jukebox muted. Strings of Christmas lights draped the walls crookedly, surmounting ancient cardboard yuletide cartoons.

She was somehow unsurprised to find that Jones was much better than she was.  “I’m tempted to accuse you of hustling me,” she joked, taking a swig of beer and watching as he neatly sank the eight-ball for the second game in a row.

The double rods of his prosthesis were rounded and smooth, curving together in a hook shape and meeting in the middle to form a loop. He simply set the loop right on the felt of the pool table and balanced his pool cue on top, just like a bridge.

Jones grinned as he straightened up, tapping his cue lightly on the floor and shrugging. “Wouldn’t be the first time,” he said cheerily, cheeks blazing red. “I have to be careful who I play with. I got booted out of a bar in Texas once, after winning two hundred bucks off some local. Who, I did not realize until afterwards, was the proprietor of the aforesaid watering hole.”

Emma laughed, tickled by his dry phrasing. “Yikes. You do have that young Paul Newman sort of look,” she teased.

In fact, it had only been two days since he had shaved, but he already had another heavy dusting of ginger scruff, which she found unsettlingly attractive. The beer wasn’t helping to distract her from it; nor was the game, since every time he bent over the pool table to take a shot, she was treated to an eyeful of his firm, round, jeans-clad derriere, and tight shoulders that flexed like a panther’s as he angled his cue.

He was half-turned now, surveying the dart boards, and she found herself looking at the solid curves of his body. They had taken off their heavy jackets and hung them near the door, since it was a pleasantly tropical level of balmy warmth.  Although Emma still had on a sweater to guard against the drafts coming from the door, Jones was wearing a simple grey Henley, the buttons at the chest carelessly undone.

Emma felt her mouth go dry at the soft touch of light on his collarbone, the gleam of sweat in the small hollow of his throat. He’d pushed the sleeves of his shirt up while they were playing, and although his left arm was obscured by the dun-colored brace of his hook, the right was lean and darkly furred, with a delicate wrist. There was a complex tattoo on the inside, several inches of ink between wrist and elbow, but she hadn’t looked closely enough yet to see what it said. There was definitely a heart in it, though, and she felt a stab of fascinated envy.

_Sweet Jesus, I need to get myself under control_ , Emma thought dimly. She took another drink, aware of a breathless trembling in the back of her mind, and knowing she should feel a lot more distressed about wanting to walk her fingers up his chest and into the hair that peeked from his collar.

“Looks like one of the dartboards has opened up,” Jones said, nodding to the other end of the game room, and set aside his pool cue to pick up his own drink. “Want to try your luck there, lass?”

He gave her a grin and raised his brows mockingly. Emma hopped off her stool and picked up her beer stein, lifting her chin with dignity. “Absolutely. Let’s see who gets hustled, now,” she challenged.

* * *

Of course, he was good at darts, too. _But not better than me_ , Emma thought. She squinted at the board, more for show than because it helped, and lifted her arm, holding her third dart lightly between thumb and middle finger.

“Come on,” Jones said loudly from beside her, heckling. “Just throw!”

Emma ignored him, but even without looking over, she could tell there was a grin on his face. She’d beaten him soundly in the first game, while he’d only won by a mere ten points in the second; now, on the rubber round, she was down to fifty-seven points, while he still had seventy.  With a flick of her elbow, she tossed the dart; with a smack, it lodged in the outside ring of the bullseye.

“Ha,” she said smugly. “Thirty-two.”

Jones grumbled and slouched from his perch on a nearby stool, as Emma went to the board to collect her darts. But as she turned back, his expression was still cheerful, his cheeks flushed from the beer. Emma was already a little drunk; he obviously was, too. It wasn’t like either of them _needed_ to stay completely sober.

“All right,” he said, taking his place at the line of tape on the floor, turning his body sideways and narrowing his eyes ostentatiously at the dartboard. “Let’s see if I can do this Swan-style. First I have to—” He stuck his tongue in the corner of his mouth, making a ridiculous grimace of concentration.

“I do not look like that!” Emma said loudly, laughing. It was getting late, but although the crowds had begun to thin a little, the music was blasting even louder than before.

“Aye, you do,” Jones insisted, with an impudent grin. “Then you hold your arm just so—” he demonstrated, pinky exaggeratedly curled in midair “—and you throw like you’re dusting the place with fairy dust, just… like… this.”

He lobbed his dart clumsily at the board, fingers spreading wide and wrist flopping; the dart missed the board entirely, thwacking into the wall and bouncing to the floor. Jones burst out laughing at the same time as Emma did, both of them hee-hawing until they were bent over, red-faced.

“I do not—throw like that,” Emma managed, tears of laughter blurring her vision.

Jones hiccuped with one final laugh, shaking his head and reaching for his tankard. “Maybe not that badly,” he admitted, wheezing for breath, “but I simply can’t see how you’re winning. Terrible technique, lass.”

A nasal, slightly slurred sneer sounded from behind him, making Emma start. “Yeah, nice fuckin’ throw, jackass.”

Emma looked up, blinking, to see a belligerent-faced young man standing between them and the bar. She thought he couldn’t be much older than twenty-one, if that; dressed in a band t-shirt, hoodie, and ratty jeans, he still had spots on his cheeks, his chin sprouting barely grown peach fuzz.

The kid gestured to the dartboard. “You gonna fuck around all night, old man, or you gonna give someone else a turn?” he demanded. A couple of his friends were standing behind him, their faces similarly surly. Emma slid forward so her feet were on the ground again, clenching her fists. She knew a boy looking for a fight when she saw one, and this kid was raring to go.

Jones had unconsciously straightened his back at the sound of the voice, the grin on his face fading. He said nothing for a moment, just took a long drink of his beer with unhurried leisure.

At last he swallowed, letting out an explosive breath, and set his beer on the wall rail, next to Emma’s. He turned to face the younger man; Emma couldn’t see his expression from behind, but she’d caught a glimpse of his eyes before he moved, hot and flashing with anger. 

“First, I’d ask that you mind your tongue around the lady,” Jones said calmly, his voice eloquent and clear in contrast to the younger man’s grating drawl. “And second—no, we’re not going to play all night. If you’d like to let us finish our game, we’ll give over the board. Provided that you ask politely.”

The kid stared at him, disgust clouding his features, and scoffed, looking back at his friends. Emma counted three—no, four of them, all young men clad similarly in grubby jeans, a hoodie here and a flannel there. “Listen to this fancy-ass punk,” he said loudly, and they snorted, shaking their heads. “Oh, _mind your tongue, sir!_ Like I gotta watch my mouth around that ho?”

For a second Emma was too distracted by the kid’s effeminate mockery of Jones’ words to pay attention to the latter half of his sentence; then his narrowed eyes turned in her direction, and the penny dropped. “Hey!” she exclaimed, anger surging, and hopped off her barstool, advancing on them. “What the hell did you just call me?”

As she went to go around Jones, he stopped her, putting out his arm. “I think you’d best walk away, lad,” he said, warning. There was a growl in his voice, and Emma could now see that the color had retreated to his cheekbones, leaving the rest of his face pale with fury.

The kid laughed, his friends following suit. “Or what?” he said scornfully, and stepped forward so that he and Jones were nearly toe-to-toe. Emma’s breath caught in her throat; the comparison couldn’t be more stark, the tall, handsome, lean trucker staring coldly down at the shorter young man, whose round face was creased in a nasty smirk.

“You gonna beat me up one-handed, old fart?” the kid continued. “How ‘bout you fuck off, and let the real—”

He’d turned his face up into Jones’ to deliver this sneering taunt, but didn’t get to finish it. Before Emma could stop him, her companion, moving so quickly she barely saw it, rabbit-punched the kid in the guts. As the younger man’s breath came out in an explosive _whoof_ and he doubled over, eyes round with surprise, Jones shoved him backwards, where he was caught by his friends.

“Killian—!” Emma began, furious, ready to yell at him to stop. But it was her turn to be cut off, as the kid’s friends promptly shoved him back at Jones, his pimply face twisted with rage, one fist swinging.

“You cheatin’ fucker!” he bellowed hoarsely.  Emma backed away a step, frozen with astonishment and uncertainty. Jones had blocked the blow, reciprocating with a fist of his own, and before long the two men were staggering back and forth, trading punches.

Her heart pounding, Emma looked wildly around; none of the kid’s friends appeared to have any interest in joining in, although they were cheering him on with gleeful faces.  The music was still going, and patrons had gravitated their way over to watch, some gawping in shock while others grinned and whooped.

She couldn’t see either of the bartenders anywhere, and there didn’t seem to be a bouncer, but… she needed to stop the brawl, either before they got thrown out, or before someone got hurt. It may have been awhile since Jones had been in the military, but Emma got the feeling he was good in a fight.  Whirling, she grabbed both half-full steins of beer, and turned with one in each hand, preparing to souse both men with them and holler for them to knock it off.

But before she got the chance, Jones straightened up, gripping the front of the kid’s shirt with his right hand, and kneed his opponent in the balls.  The young man went down like a sack of potatoes, wheezing and clutching himself, rolling over slowly on the beaten linoleum.

“Hey, that’s not fighting fair!” shouted one of his friends; abruptly three of them detached from the crowd and leapt forward, tackling Jones simultaneously. They went down in a pile, landing on the floor in a tangle of limbs; Emma heard a faint _crack!_ as someone’s skull pinged off the pool table.

“Stop! Stop it!” she yelled, starting to panic. The kid had been one thing, but… three alcohol-fueled young men against Jones, all on his own? She spun back and slammed the beer steins down, then stepped forward, ready to grab the first hooligan she could get her hands on and haul him off.

To her surprise, one of the kids had already rolled out of the fight and scooted away; he was sitting on the floor with his mouth hanging open stupidly. The other two quickly followed suit, standing up and leaving Jones on the floor; Emma felt her heart skip a beat to see the trucker limp and unmoving, arms sprawled wide. Her vision suddenly crystal clear with shock, she could even see what the tattoo on the inside of his right arm was: a heart with the word _Milah_ in it, bisected by a dagger _._

“Killian!” she cried, and shoving one of the kids aside, threw herself down next to Jones. He let out a groan, face contorting, and she realized he wasn’t unconscious, just stunned. “Killian, talk to me,” she said, grabbing his shoulders, hearing her voice tremble. “Are you okay?”

He groaned again, coughing, and winced as he raised a hand to his head. “Ow,” he said faintly. His eyes cracked open, and he looked at her, dazed, trying feebly to grin. “Oh. Hey, beautiful.”

Emma’s heart was crashing against the inside of her chest, but relief gushed through her, leaving a void that was soon filled by anger. “What the _hell_ is wrong with you?” she hissed, and turned to look at the young men.  The first kid had sat up, still clutching his crotch and breathing heavily, looking more shocked than angry. “What’s the matter with _all_ of you? Friggin’ idiots!” she yelled. “Can’t even get a beer and play some darts without a bunch of stupid, drunk men punching each other!”

She turned back and helped Jones sit up; he wasn’t bleeding, but as she ran a hand over his hair, she could feel a knot already swelling on the back of his head. His face was deeply flushed, and he was clutching his stomach and breathing heavily.

“The hell is all this?” came an impatient voice. Emma looked up; the other patrons were starting to mill back to their seats, and the bartender named Tracy broke through, clutching a bar towel.

She stopped next to the first kid and glared down at him, spreading her hands with exasperation. “What the shit, ya little moron?” she demanded, and reached down to haul him to his feet by the hood of his sweater; he was a good three inches shorter than her, and was half-bent, holding onto his wounded crotch for dear life. “What did I tell you guys about getting into fights in my place?”

The young man shook his head helplessly. He had a bloody nose, and it was running down into his mouth. “I—I didn’t start—” he began feebly.

“Yeah, I bet,” Tracy interrupted hotly. She looked around, shaking her head. “Shane, Tommy… man, you guys just can’t give me one Friday night off, can you?” She let go of the first kid, and waved a disgusted arm toward the door. “Get out of here. Go on, beat it, before I call your mothers.”

A couple of nearby patrons guffawed at that, making the young men scowl. Emma turned away and helped Jones stand up; he swayed dangerously and clutched at the pool table, wincing.  Quickly, she bolted away and grabbed a chair from one of the nearby dining tables, then plunked him into it.

Tracy stamped over, apparently having shooed the younger men out of the bar. “He okay?” she demanded shortly. She was radiating with an intense anger that didn’t seem to dissipate as she gave Jones a piercing once-over.

“I think so,” Emma said doubtfully, eyeing Jones closely; he was hanging onto the edge of the pool table for dear life, staring intently at the floor as if it might roll away beneath his feet. “Sorry. We’ll… we’ll leave, too. Can I close my tab?” she asked helplessly.

The woman snorted, but grudgingly nodded and walked back toward the bar. “Do you have a concussion?” Emma asked Jones tersely, her stomach dropping at the thought of somehow getting him to a hospital this late at night, with no car. She’d have to call an ambulance, probably.

But he slowly shook his head, taking a long breath and letting go of the pool table to gingerly touch the back of his head. He hissed in pain, but said briefly, “No.” Letting out the breath, he looked up at her, grimacing. “Sorry, lo— Emma.”

“Yeah, well… you should be,” she said grudgingly.  For the first time, she noticed that he had the beginnings of a black eye. _Guess that little twerp managed to land a punch, after all._ She made a mental note to find him some ice when they got back to the motel.

Tracy returned after a minute or two, carrying a pen and a check tray. She said nothing; just handed it to Emma, staring flatly at Jones.  Emma sighed internally. Being wary of male guests was probably just a defense mechanism in the bartender’s line of work, after all.

Emma signed the check, adding an outrageously large tip, and stuffed her credit card back into her phone case. “Sorry,” she said again, meekly, and handed the tray back to the bartender.

“I know,” said Tracy, resigned. She folded her arms. “Do yourself a favor and wait another couple of minutes, to make sure those bozos have left,” she advised, and frowned. “Which way y’all going? Toward downtown?”

Emma shook her head. “The other way. We’re staying at the Bluebird Motel.”

The woman nodded. “All right. You should be okay, then,” she said. Turning to go, she paused, and added, “Don’t freeze out there.”


	8. Chapter 8

CHAPTER EIGHT

* * *

_Don’t freeze out there, huh? Good advice, but hard to follow_ , Emma thought sourly, as they left the warm, comfortingly grease-scented air of the bar behind. It had already been cold outside when they arrived, but the temperature seemed to have dropped even further while they were inside, and a light snow was falling. She pulled her coat’s hood up with one hand, then returned it to Jones’ arm, keeping a firm grip with all ten fingers.

He wasn’t staggering anymore, although as they walked slowly across the parking lot, threading through cars and trucks, his steps were slightly uneven. Not that she was perfectly steady, herself; Emma could still feel the beer pounding through her veins, making her a little dizzy. Their breath formed clouds in the freezing air, and Emma longed to call a cab, even just for a fifteen-minute walk.

“You can… let go of me now,” Jones said breathlessly.

“No, I can’t,” Emma said coldly, the frigid air making her throat clutch. She continued clutching his left arm with both hands, tightly enough that she could feel the muscles of his upper arm standing out beneath his coat, and the hard edge of the brace where it ended just below his elbow.

He sighed, sounding both resigned and mournful, but didn’t pull away. “I’m not going to let you fall off the edge of the road and die,” Emma said insistently.

Jones laughed softly at that, but didn’t answer. They made their way onto the berm of the road, between the white line and the guardrail; a little snow was sticking to the asphalt, making their footsteps crunch. They walked for a while without talking, puffing in the cold, intermittently bumping against one another. Several times, cars passed, their headlights momentarily blinding Emma before the vehicle rushed past in a whoosh of icy wind, swirling snow up.

It didn’t seem to be long before they were halfway, on a stretch of road lined on either side by trees, the street lights spaced broadly so that each was a small pool of light in the inky darkness. The guardrail was still there to guide them, though, its silver shining dimly on their left. Emma was wondering if she should pull out her phone to use as a flashlight, when suddenly she noticed that her companion’s breathing had become somewhat ragged.

“You okay?” she asked.

Jones didn’t answer; after a moment he hitched a breath and stopped walking. “No. I think…” he said faintly, then broke away from her, staggering to the guardrail and bending over it, making small choking noises.

Emma closed her eyes and took a deep breath, steeling herself, then stepped up behind him and grabbed him around the middle. She held on tightly as he threw up, hoping to keep him from falling right over the rail and into the woods.

When it seemed like he’d finished, she helped him sit down on the guardrail. He slowly pulled a bandanna from his back pocket and wiped his mouth. “Sorry,” he said again, and tucked it away. Emma could barely see his face in the darkness, but he sounded exhausted, not to mention miserable.

Tamping down her irritation, she sat next to him, folding her arms and shivering. “It’s okay,” she said reluctantly. “Are you _sure_ you don’t have a concussion?”

He was silent, but she could tell he was nodding. “Yes,” he said, after a moment. “I’ve been concussed before, lass. That was just… beer. And the adrenaline finally fading, I suppose.  Then he sighed, bending over, and added, “I just need to sit for a moment.”

Emma didn’t reply, just pulled her coat tighter and buried her nose in her scarf.  _That motel had better have the heat cranked_ , she thought, grumpy.

“Are you cold?” came the sudden inquiry. Emma’s eyes had begun to adjust to the darkness, and she could see Jones looking at her with worry, eyes reflecting the moonlight.

“Of course I’m cold,” she snapped irritably. “It’s two freaking degrees out.”

He shifted, moving in a rustle of cloth. “Uh-uh,” Emma said, warning, and grabbed his arm again. “No way are you taking your coat off and giving it to me. I am not dragging your frozen ass back to that crappy motel just because you want to make a gallant gesture. I’ll warm up once we get moving, anyway.”

Jones was silent; Emma wondered if she had been too sharp. At last he heaved a breath and slowly levered himself up off the guardrail.

She didn’t take his arm this time, and they trudged along together silently, side-by-side, for the rest of the walk. The streetlights became less spaced-out as they approached the area of the motel, lighting a gas station here and a dark, empty municipal building there. Across the street from the motel, light spilled yellow and warm from the windows of a liquor store, the only open establishment in its garbagey little strip mall. Emma felt a twinge of unease; and abruptly, her guts twisted with loathing as she realized what it reminded her of. It looked very much like a certain roadway in Portland… and the crummy little motel where she’d gotten pregnant at seventeen years of age.

Jones dug into his pocket for the key—a real key with a plastic fob, Emma saw, just like at Granny’s—as they plodded up to the door of their room. Emma hadn’t taken more than a brief look inside before they left for the bar, and had just slung her duffel bag onto one of the beds. The door cracked open now, and Jones flicked on the light, illuminating the two beds, sitting on a faded flower-patterned brown carpet. There were no pictures or lights on the walls, just an ugly utilitarian lamp sitting on the middle bedside table, a beat-up dresser with an ancient cathode-ray television on top, and a smeared mirror. Emma looked at the beds more closely and made a face; there were cigarette burns on the top covers.

But, a bed was a bed, and at least it was warm inside. Emma flopped onto one mattress with relief as the door clashed shut behind them. Jones wordlessly tossed the key onto his own bed and arrowed straight for the bathroom, shedding his coat as he went.

Emma picked up the remote control sitting on the bedside table and tried it; to her irritation, it didn’t work. She got up and hit the power button to the television; the screen remained grey and blank. Well… they didn’t really need a television.

There was a loud curse from the bathroom, startling her. Jones staggered out, rebounding off the wall opposite. His face was twisted in disgust, and he slammed the door shut. “Don’t go in there,” he said shortly.

“Why?” Emma asked, but she knew the answer before he said it.

“Roaches. _And_ mold,” he said succinctly, stomping over to the dresser and sitting heavily on it, reaching for the ancient rotary phone next to the television. A rotary phone, for god’s sake! Emma hadn’t seen one of those in ages, and wondered if it could even dial outside the hotel. Slowly she stood up from the sagging bed, dusting off her coat, and looked suspiciously down at the unsavory bedspread, wondering if there were bedbugs, too.

Jones was dialing a number into it, and there was a brief silence as he waited. “Yes, we’re going to need a different room,” he said at last, curtly. There was another pause, his face changing from annoyance to outrage during the interval. “What? Why the hell not?” he demanded.

Emma groaned. She took her phone from her pocket; it was nearly dead, but she pulled up the mapping app, thumbing around to look for another motel.

As Jones hung up the phone with a satisfying slam—that was one thing cellphones lacked, Emma thought—she said cautiously, “There’s a Super 8 about fifteen miles away.”

“Good,” he said briskly, shoving his arms into his coat. “I’m going to go to the front desk to get my damned money back. Then I’m calling a cab, if there is one in this godforsaken armpit of humanity. Apparently every room in this entire foul location is booked, but I’m not staying to be crawled on by roaches. Can you get the phone number?”

“Already got it,” Emma said firmly, and picked up her duffel bag. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

* * *

The desk clerk yawned, not bothering to hide it. She couldn’t be more than eighteen, hair tied in a messy braid and spilling over one shoulder of her polo shirt. “Yeah, we should have a couple rooms left,” she said, and yawned again, squinting at the computer screen and clicking the mouse in a desultory manner.

Jones said nothing, but Emma could feel him quivering with impatience and rage. Despite his best efforts, he hadn’t gotten his fee back at the other motel, and they had arrived at the Super 8 to find that it was completely booked. Mystified, they had checked the internet to find out why the town was so crowded, and had discovered that some kind of major country music star had put on a show at an amphitheatre just outside in the city that day, attracting enough crowds that all the suburban motels were jammed.

This motel, a rinky-dink little sprawl of rooms that seemed barely better than the wretched Bluebird, had been the only place to answer Emma’s phone call with the admission that they might be able to help, having had a cancellation or two.

“Yup, y’all are in luck,” said the girl now, and Jones let out a breath, his shoulders sagging. “We got two rooms left. Smoking okay?”

“It’s fine,” Emma blurted, before Jones could reply. The clerk glanced up, her jaw moving slowly as she chewed her gum. Emma tried her best to smile, and added, “As long as it’s clean, we’ll take it.”

The clerk shrugged, going back to the computer. The plastic nametag pinned to her shirt said _Beth Ann_ , with a little smiley face at the end. Emma felt an inexplicably nostalgic longing for the cramped booths of Jones’ favorite restaurant.

“Aright,” the clerk said at last, and looked back up. “ID for whoever’s paying?”

Jones dug for his wallet; Emma didn’t even bother reaching for her phone case, knowing he’d just brush off her offer to pay. Again. The clerk made a token effort to cover another monstrous yawn, taking Jones’ ID and credit card. She went back to typing, slowly pecking at the keys with two fingers.

Emma looked around the lobby. Well… maybe it was a little better than the other motel.  The couches and counters were clean, at any rate, with a shelf of neatly arranged brochures showing colorful pictures of local attractions. There was a coffee maker on one counter, with stacks of cups and a basket of coffee accoutrements next to it. In the corner, a computer terminal sat beside a printer; both older machines, but the computer’s monitor was open to a home-screen and it looked functional.

“Okey dokey,” said the girl at last, giving them a tired sort of half-smile, obviously faked. “Y’all are in number eighteen, all the way down on the left.”

She handed a keycard to Jones, and added, “Receipt will be under your door in the morning.”

“Thank you, lass,” he said quietly, and Emma saw him try to smile in return.

They retreated from the lobby, bracing against the frigid gust of wind as they went back outside. The parking lot was quiet and empty, and Emma realized their sullen cab driver had left. “That rat bastard,” she muttered, and Jones grunted in agreement. _So much for making him promise to stay,_ she thought furiously. This motel was ten miles from the last, but it wasn’t as if they’d stiffed the driver on a tip; on the contrary, Emma had handed him an extra five bucks.

They stood in front of the motel room door; she could see that Jones was shivering now, too, as he swiped the keycard in the slot. A gust of warm air purled out as he cracked the door, and both of them sighed with relief. He leaned in and turned the light on, then groaned.

“What? What is it?” Emma asked. Jones stepped into the room and let her pass by, closing the door behind them.

There was only one bed. Given, it was a king-size, and neatly made with a snowy white duvet; but it sat alone in the middle of the room, seeming to mock them. Emma let out a long breath and dropped her duffel bag to the floor, wanting to throw herself on it anyway. The room itself was equally inviting, decorated plainly with pictures of landscapes, a small flat-screen television mounted on the wall atop a mini-fridge. She could barely even tell it was a smoking room, the smell so faint she may not have noticed if the clerk hadn’t said something.

“I’ll go back out and see about getting the other room,” Jones said tonelessly, but didn’t move.

Emma was at a loss to reply for a moment, and looked up at him. He looked as tired as she felt, his eyes hooded and his shoulders slouched. The pleasant swimming sensation of the beer had long since faded, leaving her mouth fuzzy and sour-tasting. “Don’t,” she said at last, helpless.

He shot her a glance, brows raised. “It’s probably the same,” she said, with a shrug. “Anyway. We’re grown adults. It won’t kill us to sleep on the same flat surface for one night.”

_Again,_ she forbore from adding, not wanting to recall the awkwardness.  Jones looked away, eyes moving over the bed. He was silent, but his chest heaved as if he was struggling. Emma felt like begging. _Please, let’s just take what we got_ , she pleaded silently.

At last he sighed and nodded, dropping his own bag with a soft thud, slowly eeling out of his coat. “Let me check the bathroom first, aye?” he said, and she could see the faint amusement in his eyes.

Emma smiled, and shucked her own coat with relief, tossing it onto one of the two chairs near the window and pulling off her boots. The carpet was soft under her stockinged feet, and she could smell lemon cleaner. She reached down into her bag to pull out one of the water bottles, still mostly full from their last stop. Tipping her head back, she chugged half of it, washing away the last of the beer aftertaste.

The room was a simple setup; door on the left, bed in the right middle, with the television across from it, and the bathroom at the back, with a large mirror and low counter outside. Emma felt a little leap of excitement to see a hair dryer hanging on the wall, and a little tray of complimentary shampoos and soaps. _Lord_ , she thought with bitter amusement, _the things that get a homeless girl excited…_

Jones emerged from the room at the back corner, and plunked his shaving kit onto the ledge. “We’re all right,” he said. He was still slumped with exhaustion as he trudged back toward her, but a corner of his mouth turned up.

“Roach-free, huh?” Emma said, without much humor, and handed him the water bottle.

Jones nodded in thanks, and took a drink. He hesitated as he passed it back, not quite glancing at her, then perched gingerly on the edge of the bed to unlace his boots. He kicked them carelessly across the room, where they thumped against the dresser. With a groan he leaned forward, putting his head between his knees.

The movement exposed the nape of his neck, tender and rosy below his mussed hair, and the seashell-smooth backs of his ears. Emma clenched her fingers to keep them from trembling; she could see the knot on the crown of his head, the dark bruise showing even beneath the thick hair.

“I’m…” she began, but her voice broke. Jones looked up at her sharply, surprised. She cleared her throat and flapped a hand toward the bathroom. “Gonna go… brush my teeth,” she finished lamely, her face flaming.

He didn’t react except to give her a tiny nod of understanding, and dropped his head again. Emma bent down to rootle through her duffel for her shower bag, the blood thundering at her temples. As she straightened up, she tried to look anywhere but at Jones. But she had to walk past him to get to the bathroom, and couldn’t help herself from seeing, out of the corner of her eye, the little spot where his dark hair formed a whorl at the base of his neck, one small cowlick sticking up stubbornly from the rest.

* * *

The bathroom _was_ nice; or at least the part of it that Emma paid attention to, the clean white porcelain sink and perfectly polished silver mirror. Teeth brushed, she stared at herself. It couldn’t be the beer; the sensation of slight drunkenness had fled nearly half an hour before, as they were getting into their second cab. But she felt dizzy, almost euphoric; too dazed to think clearly.

Her own green eyes stared back, wide and framed round with long lashes. _Am I pretty?_ she wondered suddenly, looking at her slightly crooked teeth, the freckles scattered across her nose, her dimpled chin and snow-fuzzled damp hair. _I used to think I was. But I’m such a mess now. What could he…_

She clamped down on that thought tightly, her heart beating frantically. Then she gingerly peeked beneath the mental teacup. Underneath was a lean figure, bent over on itself, tired and rather lonely; but with a soft, friendly expression on its face. Colors swirled around her vision; a sort of pleasant greenish-blue, inviting courage. _Hey, beautiful_ , he had said.

“Woman, you need sleep very badly,” she muttered at her reflection.

She wrapped her toothbrush and toothpaste up and pulled out a hairbrush, raking it through her hair. She could hear Jones moving around out in the room, presumably getting ready to sleep. He was humming to himself, though, something low and mournful; she couldn’t pick out the melody.

His eyes flashed before her, piercing and hot with the anger of the fight earlier. A little shiver went through her at the memory of seeing him laid out limp on the floor. She supposed she should be upset with him over it, but somehow any annoyance she’d felt at the time had worn right out of her on the cold walk back to the motel.

Taking a deep breath, she pulled down her jeans—there were leggings beneath, anyway—and pulled off her bra from beneath her sweater. _I wouldn’t care if he was the Pope lying next to me_ , she thought to herself stubbornly. _If I’m sleeping in a real bed, I can behave like a real woman, and take my damn bra off for the night._   In the close confines of the truck cab, she’d managed to worm it off each night, but had still felt distinctly uncomfortable doing so. As of tonight, she mostly just didn’t care anymore.

When she emerged from the bathroom, Jones was standing in front of the wall mirror, grimacing, fingers lightly touching his face. “It’s not that bad,” Emma said softly, and came up to stand next to him, looking at their reflections.

Jones smiled, taking his fingers away from the black eye. It was barely more than a small purple half-moon beneath the lower lid; too late for ice, now. His eyes met hers in the mirror. “Aye. I’m still devilishly handsome,” he said, and cocked a sly brow.

“Don’t know if I’d go so far as ‘devilish,’” Emma answered, rolling her eyes. “Maybe ‘roguish,’ though.”

Jones huffed a short laugh, and with pleasure curling inside her, she watched his cheeks go red. But his small smile faded too fast as he looked down with a sigh. Only the lamp near the door was on, aside from the bathroom light, and in the dim shadows his eyes were less bright.

“I’m really very sorry about all this, Emma,” he said softly. “Not just for… for acting like a drunken, chivalrous fool back at the bar, but… for stranding us here.”

He glanced over at her; they weren’t standing close enough to be touching, but the heat of his shame burned into her skin. She waited, but there was no more to be said, apparently. “It’s all right,” she said with a small smile, shrugging. “I’m not the one that got my ass handed to me in front of a whole bar.”

For a moment she wondered if the teasing jibe would fall flat; but a corner of his mouth curved just a little, reluctantly. Their eyes met again in the mirror, and he looked grateful. “For real, though,” Emma continued, “you don’t have to worry about me. Unless you decide to boot me off your trip, I’m no worse off than I was before.”

She cast a glance at the bed, plump and white and inviting. “In fact, much as I like sleeping in your rig, this, uh… might be a pleasant detour,” she added wryly.

“Can’t argue with that,” Jones agreed, following her gaze. He exhaled with a wistful expression, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he briefly stared at the soft bed. Then he turned and bent with a groan, digging through his gym bag to extract a toothbrush and paste.

“My turn,” he said, hefting them with a halfhearted smile, and turned away.

Emma sat on the edge of the bed while he busied himself in the bathroom, finding her hands nervously combing through her hair. She scootched back and curled up against the headboard, lacing her hands around her knees and putting her forehead to them. Her stomach fluttered with a painful yearning, heat violently rushing through her chest. She knew better than to ask herself what it was; but to actually _act_ on it?

It had only been a week… no, eight days… since Graham died. The wound on her heart was still raw, chafing beneath the bandages she’d hastily slapped over it in order to concentrate on Henry.  As badly as she missed her son, that was a mere buzz, a tight vibration in her bones—manageable, because he was still alive. And, as much as Emma hated to admit it, Regina wouldn’t let Henry want for anything. He would get over his messy birth mother. Or maybe she would see him again someday, once he was old enough.

But Graham… Graham was dead. Gone forever. The day he died, she had wept until her body felt dry. And much later, that first night in the bus station, she had lain on the hard bench for hours just blank, the grief and shock never coming. Perhaps she hadn’t accepted his death until just this afternoon, in the truck.

They’d never done any more than shake hands, up until that very last day. Even then, they’d only shared a single kiss, barely five minutes before his heart stopped beating.

Gritting her teeth, she probed the wound, her throat aching. She hadn’t been in love with him: not in the deep, excruciating way she’d been in love with Neal, anyway. Even thought she’d only been a teenager then, she’d fallen so hard and fast that she’d barely had time to realize it, before they were both arrested and thrown behind bars. For very different reasons, of course, but prison was prison. At least eleven months in a state penitentiary—with the added bonus of giving birth to an unplanned child—had given her some sense of catharsis over that old love.

But Graham… even though her feelings for him had been simple lust and affection and friendship, she felt empty.  _Yet somehow, not so empty that that some trucker’s ass doesn’t catch my attention_ , she thought, heart throbbing with inexplicable shame and sadness.

She wasn’t sure she had the courage to take the next step, was the thing. To let herself fall again, and so soon, seemed like an awful risk. Like she was asking to be hurt.

Yet suddenly the idea of Graham having died so young and so loving, with so much lost opportunity, was making her heart skip beats. Her mind conjured Jones smiling at her in the truck stop; his whispered _Oh, shit_ as he woke up next to her the next morning; the afternoon light dazzling on the planes of his face and catching the dimple in his cheek; the way his voice rose when he laughed; his quiet intelligence and kind heart.

And with that, her doubt fled. She leapt up, padding across the carpet toward the back of the room. Her feet were heavy, as if she were struggling against a current, but with a fierce anger, she plunged forward one step at a time.

“I deserve to get what I want _sometimes_ ,” she muttered under her breath.

The sound must have carried in the quiet room. “What was that, love?” came Jones’s voice, curious; he popped his head out of the bathroom door just as she reached it.

His eyes grew wide—whether at her expression or merely at her presence, she didn’t have time to guess, because in the next moment she had grabbed the front of his shirt in fistfuls and smashed her mouth against his.

His lips were soft and cool and pliant, and the kiss grew deeper as she rose to her tiptoes, leaning against him. There was a clatter of plastic into the sink, and suddenly his hand was at the back of her head, gently tangling in her hair, his left arm softly snaking around her waist. She’d closed her eyes but could feel the tiny explosions of his breath on her face; the slow, firm press of his body against hers; the light flick of his tongue caressing her own lips; the cool tile under her feet as they rocked back against the sink.

Panting, they broke apart; before Emma could even open her eyes, his mouth was on hers again, intense, greedy.  Her mouth stung with cool peppermint, and she caught his lip gently between her teeth, pulling, making him groan. Then she let go and tilted her head, lunging to thrust her tongue past his, finally closing the kiss with a faint smack.

They clung to one another, chests heaving, their foreheads pressed together. At last Emma released his shirt, clutching at his shoulders, her head reeling.

Emma leaned back a little and opened her eyes; his lashes fluttered, and he looked up into her gaze, eyes stunned and gleaming with desire. He wasn’t trembling, precisely, but somehow she felt as if she held something fragile and fluttering in her hands.

“That was…” Jones breathed, uncertainly, right hand drifting down to fall against her hip.

“A one-time thing,” she said as calmly as she could, hearing her voice as if from a distance, rough and low. “Good-night, Killian.”

Emma let go of his shoulders and turned away, but only made it half a step before his hook caught her arm, cold and hard against the skin of her right wrist. She yanked her arm to free herself, but Jones made a noise that wasn’t quite a growl. She inhaled deeply and turned back, thrusting her chin up and meeting his gaze.

“Wait just a minute,” Jones said. His voice was still quiet, sedate, but indignation was beginning to simmer in his pale eyes. “You kiss me like _that_ , and then you expect me to lie next to you and just… just go to sleep like nothing happened? Emma…”

His cheeks were burning red and he trailed off, fulminating. There was a fizzle of excitement in her loins, and a thrill shot through her body at the dangerous slash of his brows across his forehead.

“I didn’t say that,” Emma answered, huskily. “I just…”

She struggled for a moment, fishing for the words. “It doesn’t have to mean anything,” she said at last.

His frustration seemed to abate, uncertainty overtaking his features. His eyes searched hers, and slowly—carefully, as if she would bolt—he raised a hand to her face, brushing her hot cheek with the backs of his fingers. “But I want it to mean something, lass,” he said quietly, his voice unsteady. Ever so carefully, he lifted his left arm, releasing her wrist from the hook.

The gentle movement caused a sob to burst up and escape Emma’s lips before she could stop it, tears seeping into her eyes once more. She let her head fall forward onto his chest, pressed her cheek to his warm skin, the grief and joy wracking her; after a moment he put his arms around her again, holding her tightly, his own cheek resting on top of her head.

They stood that way for some time, the tiled room quiet and cool and bright around them, the only sound in her ears the faint, thudding pulse of his heartbeat. When they finally moved, it was together, gently separating. Emma reached down and took his hands, tangling her own fingers into hook and fingers alike. She sniffled.

“So… Netflix and chill?” she asked, hopefully.

Jones laughed and smiled widely, his eyes creasing and his whole face lighting with brilliant delight. “For the whole night, if you like,” he reassured her; and, still laughing, obediently allowed her to pull him away to bed.

* * *

They simply laid quietly for a while afterwards, breathing and relaxing in one another’s presence. Emma laid on her back, gazing at the ceiling and feeling a little like she had melted into the mattress.  She turned her head to the left, laying her cheek lightly against the top of Jones’ head. His hair smelled pleasantly of engine oil and deep-fried onions, along with his own warm scent.

He was curled up on his side, head laid on her breast and one arm draped across her, their legs tangled beneath the sheets. They’d left the bedside light on to make love, and beneath the dark brows and straight nose, she could see that the corner of his mouth was still curved in a slight smile.

Emma exhaled with satisfaction, feeling as if she should have a cigarette in one hand and a glass of champagne in the other. Neither of them had had any form of prophylactics on hand, so mainly they had just fooled around. She could still feel the rasping fire his stubble had left as it skimmed between her legs, and the slick spaces between that still pounded with every heartbeat. And she knew she’d left her own equivalently exquisite aches on his body.

It was her first time in years; not his, though, according to what he’d blurted out as they were hastily ripping each other’s clothes off. Emma smiled into his hair. He’d been good at it: _very_ good.

“I can practically hear you thinking,” Jones murmured suddenly, shifting a little and sighing comfortably. “I won’t bother asking if you enjoyed yourself, though.”

She huffed a laugh, and her cheeks burned. “Me neither,” she teased.

It was his turn to laugh, softly, no more than a breath of air against her skin. He caressed her stomach, drew his wrist across the edge of her ribs. Neither of them had said a word about his left arm; he’d simply taken off the prosthetic and set it on the bedside table. And he was perfectly adept with one hand, so Emma had barely noticed, more interested in sucking at the softness of his lips while raking her nails through the thicket of hair on his chest. She’d finally gotten a chance to see the pendant he wore, too, and had been fascinated to see that it was a small medallion of a saint. Patron of nomadic travelers, he had told her breathlessly.

Now she couldn’t help but look at his arm, though.  There was nothing particularly shocking about the missing hand. Just a knot of scar tissue at the wrist, trailing a few inches up toward the elbow; his arm otherwise looked just like the other, thatched with dark hair, lean and muscular. She thought it must have been a very old injury, from the easy way he used that arm much the same as his right, brushing his wrist lightly across her stomach, making her skin feel like it was glowing.

Truth be told, she was much more fascinated by the other arm—or more specifically, the ink on the inner slopes of that forearm. But she knew better than to think a heart-shaped tattoo with someone’s name in the middle (not to mention a dagger stabbing it) would be anything less than intensely personal.

She took a deep breath, then let it out. “What I’m thinking about,” she said pensively. “I’m thinking that maybe my favorite part about this whole night was when you took your shirt off and I finally got a peek at those shoulders.”

That wasn’t the only part of his body she had appreciated: she had also been perfectly delighted by the soft, slightly furry belly that had been revealed when he took off his shirt, somewhat out of place on his otherwise lean body.  Six-packs were not to her taste, especially in sexual partners. But she _did_ appreciate a good set of traps, and thought he might be more appreciative of a different, equally authentic compliment.

There was a rumbling vibration of laughter, and Jones lifted his head, a wide grin spreading across his features. He sat up a little and ostentatiously flexed, the skin of his slender arm bulging as his not-unimpressive biceps popped out. Emma made a dramatic groan and shielded her eyes with the back of her hand, making him laugh harder.

“I’m glad you approve of my poor forsaken physique, love,” he said at last, but in a tone that suggested he was pleased, and laid back down. He propped his head on his hand, eyes bright and blue and slowly sweeping across her body. “I feel as if I got more than I gave, so to speak.”

“Kind of a backhanded way of telling me I’m pretty,” Emma said dryly.

Her companion nodded slowly, his shoulder rising in an infinitesimal shrug. He had gone back to tracing patterns on the skin of her stomach, and she shuddered, giggling and putting a hand on his arm. “Knock it off—that tickles.”

He smiled and obediently stopped, becoming still. “Aye,” Jones said softly. “But that’s the thing. You’re not just pretty, Emma—you’re radiant. Even in the dead of winter, on the road running away from your problems with a total stranger… you glow.”

His words struck an odd chill within her stomach; Emma felt as if she had been punched and kissed at the same time. “Running away from my problems?” she asked, too tired to be argumentative.

Jones blinked, not appearing alarmed. “Sorry, love. I shouldn’t have put it that way,” he answered contritely. “Perhaps… on the run?”

The unapologetic sincerity with which he spoke only served to sadden Emma further. “As if that’s any better,” she said, a little grumpy.

She turned her head to look at the front window; they had pulled the opaque curtains, but a slit of light from the sodium lamps outside still peeked through a small break, orange and heartless. “I keep wondering if I really needed to run,” she said quietly. “A friend died in my arms, and I was about to be accused of murdering him. So should I have just… stayed in town and waited to be arrested? My son would have had to watch the whole thing unfold. His two mothers at each others’ throats… me in a jail cell…”

She paused and let out a long sigh.  “Except…”

The silence lasted for a moment; when she glanced back at Jones, he nodded faintly, eyes soft.  “Except from what you’ve told me… he’d already seen most of that before,” he finished for her, raising his brows. He had carefully moved his arm to rest on his hip, so that he wasn’t touching her. But his gaze was direct and warm.

“Yeah. Just… not for a _murder_ charge,” Emma agreed. “And this time I’d been tossed out onto the street by my landlady—staying in a crummy little motel not much nicer than that Bluebird place—and on top of everything else, unemployed. Because when Graham died, Regina took the opportunity to fire me right away. No one would help me, I didn’t have anywhere—”

She stopped and took a deep breath, not wanting to become tearful or angry again.  To her surprise, her companion hadn’t moved to touch or palliate her at all; he just remained quite still, gazing at her and listening patiently. And she realized that he was one of the first people in her life—even including Henry, little ball of energy that he was—who really _listened_. Who didn’t just use the time she was talking to think of what he might say next.

The thought of Henry’s energetic talkativeness made Emma sit up slowly, her stomach filling with self-hatred and dread. She hadn’t even thought about it, except for earlier when she had checked Facebook. But not only had there been no news posted about Graham’s death, but she hadn’t gotten any calls. Had Regina gone to a judge and had a warrant sworn out for her arrest, they would have at least _tried_ to contact her by phone. She hadn’t changed her number, after all.

But more than that… even if she had been arrested—so what? She would have spent a night or two in jail, most likely, then posted bail. And found a job somewhere around town, until Regina got bored of trying to fabricate evidence against her. She could have worked at the general store bagging groceries, or on the docks cleaning out fishing boats, for heaven’s sake. No matter how hard Regina pushed her away… she could have found a way to connect with Henry again. And they could have grieved together.

“Oh, my God, you’re right,” she murmured. “I did run away from my problems.”

Jones had sat up slowly with her, legs comfortably spread to brace her on either side. He put a gentle arm around her back, brushing her shoulder comfortingly. She scootched sideways and leaned against him with a long sigh, going limp and pressing her head back into his chest.

Without speaking, he obligingly slid his other arm around her, locking his arms around her breasts, and put a warm cheek to the crown of her head. She could feel his scruff in her scalp, brushy and slightly tickling.

The light was still on, but the cozy warmth of the room seemed to close in around them like a soft blanket.  Emma felt comforted and safe; and she let out a long breath, trying in vain to banish the thoughts of Henry and Storeybrooke.

“You’re a really nice man, you know that,” she said after a while, in a low voice.

His throat rumbled with a quiet laugh. “You say that like it’s some kind of surprise,” he commented wryly.

Emma shrugged, drawing a hand down the length of his thigh, liking the feel of the springy hairs under her fingertips. “You’re got to admit, hitching a ride with a stranger and then being able to pour your heart out to them is odd enough,” she responded softly. “Let alone feeling like you’re… understood.”

The words seemed weak, but Jones made a pleasant sort of grumbling _hmm_ in reply. His leg twitched, and he shivered, making a noise that in anyone less dignified might have been a giggle.  “Now who’s tickling whom?” he murmured.

Emma felt a chuckle arise from deep in her throat; carefully, she moved her hand over his thigh and backwards, to between his legs, and began to stroke a different body part. This time Jones yelped, his arms clutching around her.

“Better?” Emma asked innocently.

“You… you _minx_ ,” he answered faintly, through clenched teeth, stubble scraping against her head as he slowly lifted his chin. “Here I was… trying to be k-kind. Yo-ou’ll pay… for this…”

“Promises, promises,” Emma answered languidly, not stopping. His fingers were digging into her ribs, his breath coming in short little puffs against the top of her head. It had been awhile since she’d done this, but she thought things were going well.

Abruptly she felt his arms ease, and his hand slithered down between her own legs, deft fingers steadily beginning to curl and caress.  Emma gasped. “Aye, well… two… can play at this game,” Jones breathed, the words vibrating against her scalp.

The room was beginning to melt around them; no sensations mattered aside from the velvet hardness under her hand and the hot pounding ripeness growing below. Emma’s throat clutched, her own breath beginning to come in pants. Her heart seemed to have slowed to a glacial pace, her hand unconsciously moving in the same rhythm as his; slowly, with relish, she undulated against his fingers, moaning softly.

Lips touched the back of her neck, barely sweeping her skin; a hot line of electricity leisurely crackled through her, and she felt the faint sharpness of teeth as he bent his head to nibble at her shoulder. Faintly, she marveled at his composure, unable to do more than move her hand a little faster.

It was his turn to moan, his free arm pressing tight into her navel to hold her still as he worked. The world turned bright, then dark again, her vision spinning with stars. “Don’t… stop…” Emma heard herself say.

He didn’t; neither did she, and within a minute they had brought one another to a nearly simultaneous peak. They let go and sat silently together, gasping for breath, sticky with sweat and fluids. “Sweet mother of heaven,” Jones said at last, feebly.

Emma just huffed a laugh; then she groaned and slowly fell over, dragging him with her. Jones immediately shifted to snuggle up close, knees fitting neatly behind hers.  They were both limp, finally worn out for the evening. The bed would be a mess in the morning, but she didn’t care.

She couldn’t have said how long they laid together, simply breathing and fading into sleep.  At last, Jones carefully rose on one elbow and stretched his arm out to snap off the bedside light. Then, worming himself back down next to her in the deep blackness of the room, he deftly flipped the covers back over both of them and put his arm around her.

“Sleep well, love,” he whispered.


	9. Chapter 9

CHAPTER NINE

* * *

The sunlight filtered slowly into his vision, and he rose to the surface of consciousness with a satisfied, almost decadent leisure.  A small puff of air chilled the hollow of his throat. _Gotta fix that window leak_ , he thought dimly.

Then the puff of air came again, along with the contented drone of someone else’s breathing, and he abruptly opened his eyes, remembering that he was not in the sleeper section of the rig. The top of a tousled blonde head partly obscured the half-lit motel room beyond. Emma had shifted to lie atop him during the night and had more or less fallen asleep in his arms, her cheek squashed against his shoulder and her body lying limp across him.

Killian didn’t move for a while, reveling in both the physical pleasure of her warm body pressed against his, and the knowledge that he didn’t _have_ to leave the warm bed just yet.  The thick curtains blocked most of the sunlight, but between them he could see a pale grey winter morning dawning, chilly and unfriendly. Emma wasn’t snoring, precisely, but as the heater kicked off he could hear the soft snuffles as she exhaled, her long lashes fluttering against her pink cheeks with some kind of dream. She was perfectly adorable.

He glanced over at the bedside alarm clock: barely seven o’clock.  The repair station wouldn’t be calling for at least a couple of hours, so he would have plenty of time for a shower first. _And maybe other, more pleasurable activities_ , his mind added slyly.

“Didn’t we get enough of that last night?” he murmured, feeling his face burn.

Carefully, he shifted sideways, allowing Emma’s head to drift down his arm—oh God, the whole thing was numb from the shoulder down—and guided her gently onto a pillow. She yawned, eyes cracking open a fraction to flash a glint of moss-green; but then she smacked her lips and sighed, relaxing once more.

“I’m going to go take a shower,” he said softly. Hesitantly, he bent over and kissed the soft spot between her brows, right above the freckled bridge of her nose.

Emma made a tiny grunting noise in reply, pressing her face further into the pillow.  Killian sat on the edge of the bed for a moment longer, watching her breathe, knowing that his own face was split in a big, dumb grin. He rubbed his arm, wishing the painful prickles would go away more quickly.  Finally, he slid from the bed, snagged a pair of clean pants, and trudged toward the bathroom.

_Fool, fool, fool_ , sneered an angry voice in the back of his mind. He ignored it, just as he had back in Bangor, and again in Worcester, and again in Scranton, and every time he’d looked at her since then.

Killian caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and sighed, frowning. The swelling under his eye had gone down, but the bruise was now even more noticeable, a large indigo half-moon, fading into a dull blue at the outside edges. _Look like a right tit, you do_ , the angry voice added.

He couldn’t disagree with that, especially not having shaved for several days. He pulled a fluffy white towel from the rod over the toilet and stepped onto the bath mat, reaching into the alcove to turn on the shower.

Last night had not been one of his prouder moments. The truck breaking down had been out of his control, but getting drunk? then getting in a fight? and throwing up on the side of the road? Killian shook his head, exasperated with himself.

“Used to be a time when you’d drink twice that much, and be the one walking the girl home,” he muttered. Given, that had been half a lifetime ago, back when he was single and traveling the world with military mates. Still, he hadn’t _ever_ been in a bar fight quite like that: he felt a clench in his gut at the memory of Emma’s face, frightened and pissed all at the same time, her green eyes flashing with fury. Then a moment later, wide with terror as he woozily blurted out that she was beautiful. God, he thought he’d scared her away for good with that idiotic phrase—meanwhile, it had had exactly the opposite effect.

It was bad enough, he thought, depressed, that he’d picked up a hitchhiker. Getting fired, he could handle: he’d find another job within a day, if he pitched his qualifications the right way. And taking said hitchhiker halfway across the country, that he could also wrap his mind around. He’d ridden with mates before, taken friends on road trips with him when given the chance.

No… whatever this was with Emma, it was far more than just companionship, or even casual friendship. He didn’t even dare think the word ‘love’: the word was too loaded, and immediately made the gears in his brain grind and freeze to a halt, especially when he caught a glimpse of his own forearm. ‘Lust,’ obviously. ‘Affection,’ too. Even a _tendresse_ , maybe? Liam had been fond of the word, had used it back in the day when one of his young soldiers developed a crush. But Killian Jones had been firmly telling himself for three days now that it was impossible to have a crush on a woman he’d just met. And besides, he was too old for that.

As the water began to heat up, steam creeping from behind the shower curtain, he quietly shut the door, then inspected his face in the bathroom mirror. Not terrible, he thought; a few lines here and there, and touches of grey starting to show at the temples and above his ears. _Roguish_ , she’d said dryly. Killian grinned; he could live with that.

She obviously didn’t mind the missing hand, either—and she wasn’t weird about it. Not that he’d had many lovers since Milah, but most (especially the men) either uncomfortably offered awkward excuses about why it _didn’t_ matter, or went over the top and directly teased him.  Not Emma: a single question about where he’d lost the hand, following up on his own poor explanation, and then she’d never mentioned it again.

And that alone would have been an unutterable relief. Killian shook his head and sighed, pulling back the shower curtain and stepping in. The water was nearly scalding, and he cursed under his breath as it touched the tender spot on the back of his head. But he felt a deep pleasure at the privacy of the bath, the clean white porcelain and half-transparent shower curtain leaving it warm and cheerfully bright.

No, it wasn’t just Emma’s sensitivity he appreciated: it was also how much he implicitly knew he could trust her. He couldn’t put a finger on _why_ he’d trusted her that first night. As he’d told her, picking her up from the side of the road made perfect sense: a young woman all alone on a snow-dusted onramp, one thumb hesitantly raised, her shoulders sagging with exhaustion?  Yes, he could rationalize sympathy and pity, even if it meant putting a whole lot of faith in his own snap judgment.

But as she’d put it, the rig was his home, his bedroom and living room all at once. And he’d still simply turned the engine off and crawled into bed, leaving her to do as she pleased in his own private quarters.

Perhaps it had just been that he was exhausted from the long drive down from Nova Scotia; or maybe it had been the sadness in her eyes. Ducking his head under the stream of water and reaching down for one of the tiny shampoo bottles, Killian mused back upon that first evening. It had been dark inside the cab, too dim to see her features, and she had spent most of that first hour wordlessly staring out the window, patently too nervous and tired to carry a conversation.  But he’d seen the sorrow, her eyes dull and miserable in the light of passing cars.

He snorted a laugh, rinsing the shampoo from his hair and picking up the soap. Well… if nothing else, their revels the night before (four pints! he’d only had _four pints!_ that would have been a light round before dinner, in his youth) had brightened those eyes to brilliance, at least up until the point where he’d punched a bloody teenager for nothing more than rudeness. But even then, she’d been astonishingly patient with him.

“Little as I deserved it,” he muttered, rubbing a hand over his face and wondering if he felt like shaving. Probably not. _Emma seems to like the scruff… right?_

Emma, Emma, Emma.  He couldn’t think of anything else, could barely even worry about his own livelihood; had forgotten about the misery of the political landscape, the dead brakes on his rig, the rising price of diesel, the overdraft charges on his bank account, everything that had fretted at his mind for the last few weeks. That kiss—and _what_ a kiss!—erased it all, the moment her lips touched his.

Yet the real question hadn’t been answered yet. He tried pushing it away once more, to no avail.

What on earth happened now? Not only was she the first hitchhiker he’d picked up since leaving home ten years before, but she was also the first person for whom he’d really fancied in… well, ten years. Since Milah. Sex was sex, he liked it and took it where he could, but intimate encounters rarely led to more. He had very little experience with true affection.

Yet if this pit stop didn’t muck up his schedule and they actually made it all the way across the country to Portland, he would have to leave Emma in some strange city to make her way on her own. He cleared his throat, astonished to find that the mere thought of it made him unsteady, not to mention anxious.

“That stupid shower was what did it,” Killian said under his breath, glaring murderously up at the shower head again, as if it and all its kin were responsible for his besotted mistakes. 

He’d walked into the rotunda of the truck stop, expecting to meet his companion much the same way he’d found her earlier: a tired young woman tucked into a military-style coat many sizes too large, clad in a grubby hooded sweatshirt and jeans and mud-stained boots, a beanie pulled low over suspicious eyes, stringy blonde hair trailing from beneath. Instead, he’d been hailed by an enthusiastic voice, and had been stunned to see a flush-faced beauty with glowing golden curls, her green eyes soft with a smile.

Now he felt a clench in his gut. He’d once loved another green-eyed woman; a mother who had left her son behind to seek a better life at Killian’s side. And had died before being reunited with that son. Ever since Emma had mentioned her young lad, Killian had been troubled by the uneasy memories of that last day; by the paralyzing knowledge that even if Milah’s estrangement from her husband and son hadn’t been his _fault_ … he had certainly contributed to the problem merely by being a selfish, arrogant young fool.

Killian sighed and turned off the water, dashing the droplets from his face and tearing open the shower curtain with a fierce jingle, trying to dispel his guilt and fear. Emma had put it well, last night. It was rare enough that one was able to spill their guts to a stranger, let alone feel like they understood.  He’d told her very little of his life, but he knew he would, if they kept traveling together like this.

_Well, and that’s up to her_ , he said to himself firmly, as he picked up the towel and dried himself off. Despite the whirr of the overhead fan, the mirror was steam-covered, opaque with moisture.  When he looked into it, his face was a vague round shape, lined by the black of his hair _. My life is a straight line moving forward—if she wants me to make a detour with her, she’ll tell me._

* * *

When he emerged from the bathroom, he was nearly blinded by the intensely bright sunshine blaring through the open front windows. For a moment he didn’t notice Emma, sitting on the edge of the bed with her back to him.

She jumped as Killian closed the bathroom door, whirling around to face him with the sun behind her. “Morning, lass,” he said, with a smile, squinting. He bent down to pick up his jeans, and pulled them on, but still carefully watching her.

“Hey,” she said, and although he couldn’t make out her features, he could tell she’d been crying from the thick sound of her voice. She appeared to be wearing nothing but a sweater and leggings, but he couldn’t tell if it was out of modesty, or if she’d only gotten half-dressed.

He snagged an undershirt from his bag, anyway, and pulled it over his head before stepping closer. She was looking down at her phone, and he could faintly tell that her hands were shaking.

Killian knelt down in front of her. There were tears dripping down her face, and her nose was red. “What’s happened, love?” he asked gently, his heart twisting at the mixed anxiety and joy in her features.

“Henry,” she whispered, and a corner of her mouth curled up in a hesitant smile, even as a tear slipped down past her nose and into her mouth. “He… well, my friend David… just called. And then put Henry on the line.”

She sniffled, wiping the tears from her face, and stood up abruptly, hand clenching around her phone. “I—I guess the coroner said Graham—the sheriff—his death was of natural causes,” she explained haltingly, pacing. “And I don’t know how, but David got hired as the new sheriff, and he’s not arresting anyone. Including me. Which means I never had to leave, I can go back. Even if Regina’s still there. I _have_ to go back. Henry wants me there, he needs me. And—”

Her words had begun to run on together, and her hand was clenched in her hair as she broke off, breathing heavily. Killian, helpless to see her like this, carefully touched her shoulder, drawing his fingers down her arm.

The touch seemed to comfort her, the tension slowly fading from her muscles. The sunlight struck into the depths of her eyes, sparking back emeralds. “I have to go back,” she said again, with a helpless shrug, and turned those remarkable eyes up into his face. Her lips trembled.

He didn’t hesitate. “Of course you do, love,” he said, in a reasonable tone, and smiled.

Emma let out a shuddering breath that was almost a sob, and bent to put her arms around him. Killian could feel her heart racing away, her face pressed against his shoulder. A slow knife of cold grief was beginning to slide its way through his bosom, and he closed his eyes, forcing his face to behave.

At last she drew away. “Okay,” she said firmly, as if to steady herself, and broke into a wobbly smile. “Well. I’d better get moving. We’re near the highway, right?”

In a flurry of motion she turned away, tossing her phone onto the bed and snatching up her clothes from the floor, stuffing them into the duffel without a moment’s thought. Killian followed suit, but watched her warily. _Near the highway?_ She wasn’t thinking of…?

Her cleaning complete, Emma stood and looked around the room. All that remained was the bed, mussed from their nighttime activities, and the other furniture, laid bare under the merciless bright rays of the winter sun.  Killian slowly straightened up, and watched, dumbfounded, as she whipped her coat from the chair and pulled it on, then plucked the omnipresent beanie from the pocket and snugged it over her hair.

Then she advanced on him; his lips froze as she slipped her arms around him and hugged him tightly, his own arms automatically reciprocating. “Thank you—thank you _so much_ , Killian,” she said, her rough voice muffled against his shoulder. “I’ll never be able to thank you for getting me this far.”

Then she stood on her tiptoes, kissed his lips, and dug into her pocket again, and pulled out a wad of cash. Hastily, she ripped half of the bills away and jammed them back into her pocket. Before he could stop her, she was pressing the remainder into his hand.

“This is for my half of the hotel room, and food, and—and everything,” she said insistently. Her fingers were cold, but her eyes were fixed on his, warm and pleading, still half-brimming with tears of overwrought emotion.

And then she whirled.  She plucked up her duffel, throwing it over her shoulder, and was out the door with a slam. Just like that.

The room was so horribly, terrifyingly silent in the moments afterwards that Killian continued to stand like a rock in the middle of the room, still breathing in her warm scent. Slowly, he raised his hand, staring without comprehension at the crumpled bills.

A crack and a loud whoosh sounded, and he jumped, a screech caught in his throat. It was just the heater kicking on. But with the shock, his own stupidity hit him. Sweeping the keycard from the dresser, he lurched forward, yanking the door handle open to follow her.

~*~

She was halfway across the parking lot already, her breath puffing in the cold air. “Wait, lass, _wait,_ ” he yelled after her, the soles of his bare feet stinging as he ran across the freezing pavement.

Emma looked around reluctantly just as he reached her. “I don’t want your bloody money,” Killian said hotly, and unceremoniously thrust it at her.

She frowned, waving her hand, still walking away. “It’s fine—I want you to have—”

“Swan—stop! Stop, please,” he interrupted, instinctively reaching forward to snag her arm. But he hadn’t put the hook on yet, and his bare arm just swiped empty air, filling him with an even stronger irritation. The bright sunlight bouncing off the pavement was making him squint, and he shivered as a brisk wind swooped through the parking lot, striking a chill in his bones.

Luckily, the pleading in his voice must have caught Emma’s attention, and she did pause, facing him with furrowed brows. “What?” she demanded, frustrated, and gestured vaguely toward the road. “I have to go. Just—you can keep that, I’ll be fine—”

He broke in again, trying not to sound angry. “Emma. _Stop_ ,” he said, the lump in his throat almost catching at the words. “You can’t possibly think of hitchhiking all the way back. It took us three days to get from Maine to Missouri, and that was under full sail, already set on this exact route. It might be a week before you get back.”  _Or longer_ , he thought wildly, still bowled over by her insistence and courage.

“Well, I have to try!” she cried, and all but stamped her foot with determination, her slender hands fisted by her sides. “I’ve got to get back to Henry right now!”

Killian took a deep breath to try and calm himself, the icy air like knives in his lungs, and made a palliative gesture. “I know,” he answered quietly. “You want to be with your son, and you should be. I don’t want to stop you. Quite the contrary. But—” he waved his hand in the same direction she just had “—we’re just outside the city, love. There’s got to be a bus terminal, or a train station within half an hour. Let me call a taxi, and get you there.”

Emma stared at him; to his astonishment, the wariness of that first day had crept into her eyes once more. His stomach convulsed in simultaneous rage and anguish. “If you can afford to throw away this kind of money on nothing more than a good roll in the hay,” he added bitterly, holding out the bills again, “you can afford to take it and buy a bloody bus ticket instead, Swan.”

She flinched, as if he had struck her. He felt a deep thrust of shame; he didn’t have any right to use last night against her. Especially not in her situation, stuck in the middle of nowhere with over a thousand miles between her and her son.

But he was damned if he would take her money. Not when she was leaving him like this. And her face softened, the suspicion and irritation fading somewhat; she dropped her eyes.

“Oh, Killian, I’m—I’m sorry,” she said, in such a tiny voice that he almost didn’t hear it. A constant fine shiver was beginning to run through his body, and he gritted his teeth to keep them from chattering. She looked up again and swallowed. “I didn’t… that’s not why I gave you…”

Emma had reached out her own hand, hesitantly, to take back the bills.  But abruptly she started, glancing at his bare feet. “You don’t have any shoes on!” she exclaimed in distress.

“Hang my shoes,” Killian said, jaw clenched, glaring at her stubbornly; the feeling was practically gone in his feet and hand and face anyway. He folded his arms around himself, hunching. Then in a moment of inspiration, he added, “I’ll go put them on if you let me call you a taxi.”

She heaved a sigh, her face wrenched with the mixed emotions of vexation and worry, and began pushing at his arm, herding him back toward the motel room. “Fine. All right, a train might be faster, anyway,” she admitted. Gritting his jaw again and squinting against the bright sunlight, he strode back to the room at her side, arms folded tightly against the chill.


	10. Chapter 10

CHAPTER TEN

* * *

Emma stared intently at the motel room door, running the brush swiftly through her hair. She knew she was going too fast, that she hadn’t dried it well enough, and that once she’d crammed her beanie on top, she would be facing a head of tangles and mats in the morning. But her pulse was racing, her hands anxious, her stomach wrenched with the need to _leave_.

Jones had left while she stepped into the shower. He’d gently suggested that a quick rinse would do her a world of good, since she would be traveling for at least two days without stop. She couldn’t deny that his level-headed suggestions had merit: with a bus or a train, she would have a schedule, she would know her stops… and most importantly, she wouldn’t run the risk of catching a ride with a lecherous old creep, or getting tossed out halfway.

Emma sighed, trying to tamp down her completely unjustified impatience. Jones had gone to check out of the motel while she was in the shower, and she wondered whether there was a long line; he’d been gone nearly twenty minutes.

To keep herself from being nervous, she reminded herself every few minutes or so that the poor man had taken on the thankless job of driving her across the country without asking for so much as a thank-you. And on top of that, he’d fed her multiple times, and had housed her for the last four nights.  No—she had no right to be angry with Killian himself.

And she felt horribly embarrassed for earlier. She had simply panicked at the sound of Henry’s voice, all of her companion’s kindness and their intimacy vanishing in light of her burning fear that something else would go wrong before she got back.  Ever since she’d left Maine, she had been plagued by the intense paranoia that she had left Storeybrooke for no reason. And now, a thousand miles away, with no transportation of her own, that fear had come to life.

“But if you’d stayed in Storeybrooke, you _would_ have been arrested,” she told her reflection insistently.  The woman staring back at her just frowned, ripping the brush through her hair once more. “Regina would have made sure of it, one way or another.”

There was a small _zzz_ as the door lock engaged, then cracked open. “Finally,” Emma said under her breath, wanting to exorcise the last few ungracious thoughts, and shoved the brush back into her bag.

Her companion’s nose was bright red with the cold, and he shook a light dusting of snow from his still-damp hair. “Sorry that took so long,” Jones said breathlessly. “I printed off a couple of train schedules while I was waiting. Taxi should be here any second, though.”  He waved the papers. “Ready to go?” he added, brows raised.

“Yup,” Emma answered, pulling the string of her duffel closed and putting on her own coat. “Can I… ask you a question?”

He smiled, dimples standing out in his pink cheeks. He hadn’t shaved this morning, and the sun from outside caught his scruff from behind, making it glow nearly red. “Of course, lass,” he assured her.

She caught herself fidgeting, her hands playing with the zipper of her coat, and made herself quit. “Do you want to go along with me to the train station? You said your truck probably won’t be ready for awhile, so…”

As she trailed off, his smile grew softer and his eyes brightened. “I would love to go with you,” he said earnestly.

Emma felt sick to her stomach—she almost wished she hadn’t asked. Knowing that he obviously held feelings for her was anything _but_ reassuring at the moment.

But it was too late now: and in all truth, she also knew that having a friend with her at the train station would keep her from being quite so much of a nervous wreck. “Thanks,” she said, and managed to summon a smile of her own.

* * *

The ride to the station was quiet.  They looked over the train schedule, dithering over which connections she could make to get home fastest. Emma told him wistfully how she would welcome the sight of New York, for however brief a time. In turn, he gave her a colorful picture of Chicago and the nation’s capital, and the views she might see in whichever city she passed through. Coming into Kansas City, they exclaimed together at the sights as they passed over a bridge into the city.

Not once, though, did Jones touch her, or speak to her in tones of friendship other than his usual warm politeness. Was it because of the taxi driver’s sullen presence? Or was he still smarting from earlier? His sorrowful bitterness—“nothing more than a good roll in the hay”—had struck her deeply. She hadn’t known how offended he would be at her offer of money, practically reacting as if she had thrown a stack of singles at him.

Given, she thought, he had told her enough about his past to hint that he’d once been just as poor as she was now. Perhaps refusing to be rewarded for a charitable act was a stubborn sticking point in his character. At any rate, she pocketed the cash again, and neither of them spoke of it.

Now they stood in the station, waiting in line to buy a ticket. Jones was a warm, solid presence at her shoulder, and she felt a stab of gratitude for his serenity. He was calmly looking around at the sparse crowds, hands shoved in his pockets.  Beneath his practical puffy down vest, the familiar flannel was back, and his trucker’s cap was once more tilted up jauntily over his hair.  Emma suspected that he only had a handful of regular outfits, which he’d carefully cycled through during their trip west. She had been doing the same, after all.

“See anyone interesting?” she asked.

Jones looked down, the corner of his mouth curling. “This early in the morning? On a Saturday? Nah,” he said comfortably. He took his hands from his pockets and stretched his arms in an ostentatious Y, yawning, then let his arm fall down around her shoulders, giving her a brief squeeze before putting that hand back in his pocket.

It was such an affectionate, soothing little gesture that Emma’s cheeks bloomed with heat. She clutched the train schedule, staring at the board inside the ticket office, listing all of the departing and arriving trains.  If she managed to get on the very first eastbound train out of town, he could get to New York City by late that night. There was less than an hour until the train left, though.

“You’ll make it, love,” Jones said, making her start. The corners of his eyes crinkled, and she realized he was looking at the board, too.

“I hope so,” Emma answered, trying to smile.

In fact, there was only one more person in line in front of them. And it wasn’t like she had any baggage to check; evidently she was allowed to bring _two_ fifty-pound bags with her, which was probably twenty pounds more than her entire duffel weighed. Unless something truly absurd occurred, she would be on the train in no time at all.

And then she would leave Jones behind, standing in the station alone. As if reading her mind again, he spoke. “You’ll be home before you know it, lass,” he assured her, cheerfully. This time his smile seemed reluctant, though.

Suddenly the customer in front of them bobbed her head, picking up her bags and stepping away from the counter. Emma sighed in thanks.

The desk attendant ignored them for a moment, fingers clattering away at her keyboard. For a moment Emma thought of the dead tired clerk back at the motel. But the woman looked up with a genuinely friendly smile. “Help you?” Her voice was tinny from behind the glass.

“Yeah… can I get a ticket for the next train to Chicago, and pick up a connecting line or something from there up to Bangor? Or Portland, maybe?” Emma asked. Her nerves were singing. What if the trains were sold out? She’d never taken Amtrak before in her life, maybe none of that made sense to the clerk.

But the woman didn’t hesitate. “Sure thing. I’ll see what I can do,” she said, attacking the keys again, clicking the mouse. Her heart in her mouth, Emma had to keep herself from tapping her nails on the counter; it wasn’t like she could make anything go faster by being impatient. Jones had drawn back a little, but she could still see him from the corner of her eye, leaning against the empty counter next to them, watching on calmly.

At last the desk attendant looked up. “Okay. Looks like we can get you into Bangor by Monday around six, as long as you don’t mind a transfer or two,” she informed Emma. “Coach or business?”

Emma’s heart leapt. That would just leave her time to catch the last bus into Storeybrooke! “Coach is fine, thanks,” she said, a little breathless with relief, and reached into her pocket, tightening her hand around her phone. _Henry, here I come,_ her mind said in a faint, prayerful voice.

It took only a minute for the attendant to enter all of her ticket information. Emma noticed a little removable tag on the side of the window, just above the metal tray where tickets and money were passed through; _J. Darrow_ , it read.  Vaguely, she wondered what the “J” stood for. Certainly not Jessica; the woman was old enough to be Emma’s mother. Janet, maybe?

“All righty, then,” the attendant said, and gave one last triumphant click. “The two trips together will be three hundred dollars, even,” she announced.

Emma nearly choked: she had expected seventy-five bucks, maybe a hundred, but _three hundred?_ Her hand clenched in her pocket again.

She could try one of her credit cards, but both of them were nearly maxed out; the one she’d used last night might be already. And spending three hundred dollars in cash would leave her with barely enough to feed herself on the way home, let alone enough for a bus ride from Bangor out to the coast. There was no way she could justify touching her bank account, either – that was to make rent. Going back to Storeybrooke relatively broke was one thing: going back to Storeybrooke _completely_ broke was quite another.

Slowly, she asked, “Is… is there anything cheaper?”

The attendant bobbed her head from side to side amiably. “I can go back and check, sure. Let me save your ticket info, hon.”

An agonizing minute’s wait later, she nodded. “Okay. If you take a later connecting train out of New York, it’s…. let’s see. It’d go down to two-fifty-five. That’s a little better deal. Although, of course, you won’t get into Bangor until around eleven.”

She looked up, giving Emma a patient (and maternal) sort of eye.  She was a kind-looking woman, hair tied back in a bun and cheeks speckled with tiny broken veins. Emma opened her mouth, but couldn’t seem to speak. Getting in at eleven o’clock meant a whole extra day of waiting to see Henry… and what was that measly fifty bucks in cash going to get her, anyway?

Emma glanced up at the clock on the wall; already 8:30.  No time to dither around, then. “I… no, never mind, I’m sorry,” she said quietly, and withdrew her hand from her pocket, fingers tightly gripping the bills. She would just have to be hungry and broke when she walked back to Storeybrooke. “I’ll take the first one. Can I pay cash?”

The attendant nodded; and to Emma’s surprise, offered a sympathetic smile. For a moment, she felt self-conscious; did she look as poor as she felt?

The second hand of the clock continued edging forward as the woman finished up her typing. And a bare moment before the attendant looked up, mouth open to once more ask for payment, a hand reached in front of Emma and gently placed several bills into the metal tray.

She looked up; Jones was gazing straight ahead at the attendant, eyes clear and piercingly blue. _He’s even wearing the same thing_ , she thought, dizzy with déjà vu, feeling his arm snake around her back. They weren’t in a filthy gas station, facing a pair of redneck clerks, but he could have been transported onto this spot from that first night and she wouldn’t have known the difference.

Then Emma nearly jumped with shock. “Wait—no, wait!” she exclaimed. The desk attendant, obviously assuming that Jones was a husband or boyfriend, had reached forward for the money without hesitation; now she froze.

Jones smiled at the woman, and bent his mouth to Emma’s ear. “Don’t look a bloody gift horse in the mouth, Swan,” he whispered, then kissed her temple, still calm and glowing with the confident aura of a man whose precise responsibility was to drop several hundred dollars on her train ticket.

She opened her mouth, wanting to protest anyway; but at the thought of Henry, her pride shriveled and died inside her. “Never mind,” she heard herself say once more, with a pained smile.

The desk attendant raised her eyebrows, but didn’t ask any questions; and a few moments later Emma found herself in possession of a strip of tickets. Shouldering her bag, she followed the woman’s pointed finger toward a staircase, Jones trailing behind her silently.

* * *

The platform was nearly empty; the train hadn’t even arrived yet, and only a few passengers were milling around with their bags. Emma dumped her duffel onto a bench and, finally, turned to Jones. “Why?” she demanded. He looked startled, but her frustration was too powerful for her to care. “You wouldn’t even let me pay for half a goddamn motel room, acting like I _used_ you or something—but then you come in and—and—”

She turned away, sniffing back confused tears, staring at the ugly square metal buildings of the station. “Because it was me who suggested this in the first place, love,” Jones said quietly. “If I’d thought for two seconds about it, I’d have remembered these trains are bloody expensive. And that you wouldn’t have been hitchhiking in the first place if you’d had the money for public transport.”

It was a perfectly logical answer, but somehow it infuriated Emma more than if he’d said he loved her. “I _did_ have the money for it,” she snapped, glaring at him. “I just… didn’t want to waste it.”

Jones didn’t look so much exasperated as exhausted, his shoulders slouched beneath the padded vest. “Well, I’m sorry, then,” he said tiredly. “I guess I let my stupid soft heart get in the way.”

Now it was his turn to look away, the hair beneath his cap riffling in the chilly breeze. His expression was guarded, and yet somehow so sad that Emma felt a pang of regret strike in her breast. Last night felt like half a lifetime ago.

Without thinking, she slid her hands around his narrow waist, pulling close. As his face turned down toward hers, she lifted her chin and kissed him. Not like last night’s fiery kiss, though; his mouth was unresisting, soft, and his own arms circled her with infinite gentleness.

Emma broke away, putting her head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Thank you.”

He rocked slightly on his heels, pressing his cheek to her head. “Trust me, the last thing I want to do is put you on a train and send you hundreds of miles away, Swan,” he murmured, his voice catching a little. Held safely in his embrace, she could hear his throat rumble as he swallowed.

“And yet for whatever reason, you’re doing it,” she answered in a low voice. Her eyes were closed, and she could hear her own heartbeat, beginning to slow in his calm presence.

His chest expanded, and he let out a long breath. “Aye, I am,” he whispered, voice husky.

Surprised, Emma lifted her head. The color had risen high in his cheeks, and he blinked down at her, brilliant eyes shining, misty and shadowed with pained emotion.

“Are you…?” she asked uncertainly, her heart beginning to pound again.

He shook his head, letting go of her for a moment to sniff and brush away the half-fallen tears. “No—well, yes,” he amended quickly, with a stuttering laugh, and smiled shyly at her. “Yes, I think so. But I can’t… I can’t help remembering the past, too. Mistakes I made when I was young, that I’m not repeating now.”

Emma frowned, confused. Jones cleared his throat, a blank sort of grief falling across his features. “What the hell. I suppose I may never see you again, lass—so no harm in telling you, right?” he said, with a laugh that was almost a sob this time.

Too heartsick to speak, Emma just nodded. Jones took another deep breath.  “I once loved a woman who’d left behind a son,” he explained softly. “I was too young and selfish to care, then. She kept telling me, we’d go back for him someday, that he was fine with her husband. So we traveled, saw all the great places of Europe and the Mediterranean. And my Milah forgot how unhappy she’d been.  Until…”

Jones stopped, his Adam’s apple bobbing. Emma’s breath caught in her own throat. “Until one day,” Jones continued at last, roughly, “I wasn’t paying attention, and tipped our truck over a hillside. Woke up in the hospital to be told she was dead. Had been for two days, technically speaking. Her son was by her side when they turned off the machines, at least.”

He shifted his arms around her, voice caught in his throat, his eyes closed. Emma felt a chill; no wonder he had been so eager to help her get home. Her stomach suddenly twisted in horror at the thought of Henry watching her die… and Jones standing off to the side, face grief-stricken and hands—no, hand; she knew without asking that it was the same ‘accident’—pressed against the glass of a hospital room window.

“Oh, God, I’m so sorry,” she blurted, tightening her arms around him, and let her head fall to the soft padding of his shoulder again. “I… Killian, that’s horrible.”

Jones’ embrace grew tense, and she felt him bury his face in the top of her head. “Well,” he muttered, “that was in another country. And besides, the wench is dead.”

Emma had heard the quote before, although she didn’t know where it was from. Before she could say anything, there was a distant foghorn-like blast. The loudspeakers above crackled, and a soothing, bell-like voice announced that the train was coming into the station at last.

They parted without speaking; Emma bent to pick up her duffel again as the train appeared, its tapered nose sliding into the station like a monstrous silver eel. She felt cold and hot at the same time, and as the train whooshed past them in a deafening wash of wind, she found herself automatically clutching to find Jones’ hand, the metal hard and comfortingly solid beneath her fingers. She couldn’t make herself look at him.

As the cars began to slow, coming to a halt and leaving the platform quieter, he spoke.  “Could you…” Jones began, then hesitated. Emma raised her brows, and he asked cautiously, “Could you maybe… text me when you get home?”

Emma burst into a hysterical little laugh, making him hunch his shoulders again. “Yes. Of course, Mum,” she assured him, and his lips curled into a trembling smile.

They hugged once more, tightly; Emma could hardly make herself let go, feeling like she was about to jump down a rabbit hole. The voice on the loudspeaker was talking again, saying something about boarding, and passengers exiting the train were moving around them, gabbling loudly and dragging wheeled suitcases.

But still they stood like stone, wrapped around one another. At last Emma forced herself to pull away. “We shouldn’t be sad, really,” Jones said with a shrug, and smiled. “This is quite a happy moment. You’re going back to your son.”

Emma took a deep breath and let it out in a whoosh. “Yeah. Although, I’m trying not to think of how nervous that makes me,” she agreed, carelessly drawing a thumb along the line of his jaw, the stiff scrub of his whiskers rough under her hand.

“Just the uncertainty of it?” he asked, catching her hand in his.

She nodded. “And… that it’s going to be really hard,” she admitted.

Jones nodded and made a moue, sucking his teeth, obviously thinking. “Well,” he said, grinning wanly, and let go her hand to reach into his pocket, “we can make a little something for you to cheer yourself with on the way.”

He lifted his phone, opening its camera app, and bent so their faces were together. Emma could see the round ovals of their features on the screen. “Don’t you dare make a face,” he mock-warned. As she grinned wanly, he hit the center button, the shutter snapping.

“No, no, I wasn’t ready,” she protested. Jones, still grinning, tapped the phone to pull up the picture; both of their faces were red with the wind, their eyes sparkling into the camera. Emma was astounded at how happy she looked.

“Okay, fine, let’s take a silly one,” he grumbled, and held up the phone again. She stuck her tongue out, crossing her eyes, and heard the shutter snap once more. Jones looked at the picture and laughed, then showed it to her. He’d made a face as well, eyes round and mouth wide in an idiotic grimace.

She couldn’t seem to summon a laugh, but Jones did, before tucking the phone away again. “And now… I’d probably better get out of your way,” he said firmly. He swallowed, and she read the apologetic lie in his eyes: _Too much chance of me running alongside when you go_ , his regretful expression said.

“Yeah. Probably easier to just part ways while we still have the chance,” she agreed reluctantly. “Gotta tell you, though, I’m not really the tearful good-bye kiss kind of person.”

The corner of Jones’ mouth curled again in a smile; he was gazing down at her, bright eyes fixed on her face as if he were memorizing it. “Kiss for luck, instead?” he suggested.

Without hesitating she lifted her head and placed her lips on his, the beard scrubbing against her skin as they kissed one last time. She felt her cheeks flushing, and pulled him tight against her, his arm tight in the small of her back.

They ended with their foreheads pressed together, breathing hard. “Goodbye, Swan,” Jones said softly, and let out a sob-like laugh even through a brilliant smile.

Then slowly his hand fell from her face, and he backed away, leaving her standing alone on the platform. Emma, her throat locked in silence, watched him go, his reddened eyes turned down to the ground; with a single glance back over his shoulder, he shoved his hands into his pockets and jogged up the staircase, deftly weaving between passengers until he disappeared into the overhead walkway.

Sniffling, wiping the tears from her face, Emma pulled her tickets from her pocket, trudging toward the train door. She made her way to her seat in a daze, climbing the narrow steps to the upper deck and stuffing her bag into the overhead compartment.

The compartment was mostly empty, the morning sun shining cruel and bright over the blue seats. Emma wedged herself into the window seat. Dimly she noticed that there were outlets on a bulkhead wall strip; a small reading light overhead; a fold-down tray on the back of the seat in front of her. _Just like an airplane_ , she thought, and nearly burst into tears, thinking of the rig’s bunk. _I’d rather have none of this, the smell of diesel and coffee, and Killian Jones sitting next to me_.

Closing her eyes, she leaned against the window, letting the grief and gratitude pass through her in waves until she was empty again. Then, taking a deep breath, she pulled her phone from her pocket and opened the messaging app, typing out a quick message to Henry, to let him know she was headed home. And if Regina had his phone? _Fuck it_ , she thought, with determination. _Let her feel intimidated for once._

Slowly, she went back into her messages, finding the last conversation and opening the emoji keyboard. Train… house… tearful face… happy face. What else? A wrench, a tractor-trailer, a thumbs-up… and finally, a heart.

Too much? “Nope,” she muttered, and hit Send.

Not long before the engines began to rumble, the station beginning to inch slowly by the window, the phone dinged with a text. Looking up from her favorite old novel, Emma opened the message and huffed a laugh.  A tractor-trailer, an arrow, a house, and a question mark.

No need to answer with emojis this time. _Yes, please_ , she typed. Hesitantly, feeling like a fool, she kissed the tip of her finger, and tapped Send.

The station fell away behind them, the train bursting into the city and angling northeast into the sun. The tracks approached a highway overpass, and even at this hour of the morning she could see a dozen or more tractor-trailers already zooming their way in and out of town.

Her phone buzzed one last time: the picture of them smiling, followed by _:)_

Emma laughed softly and locked the phone, tucking it safely back into her pocket. Her future was more uncertain than ever—even with the murder charges dissipated, who knew what shenanigans Regina would get up to once Henry’s other mother was back in town?

But underlying the joy of knowing she would see her son again soon… the sudden excitement of going back to Storeybrooke, probably the only home she’d ever had… and the soft wonder of knowing she still had folks in her corner there… Emma held fast to the string fastened somewhere under her heart, connected to a friend out in the wide world beyond.


	11. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the final chapter, and I'm blown away by the amount of feedback the story has received - thanks so much to everyone who has taken the time to read. Smooches!

Emma squinted, angling the paintbrush clockwise a little, and took one last swipe against the tape. There! Letting out the breath she’d been holding and sitting back on her heels, she looked with admiration on her work. After three weeks of scraping paint on evenings and weekends, then another two of standing on ladders with a pole or a paintbrush, the front porch was finally done, even the wooden bits that sat right against the siding.

“Moooooom! I need help!” came the insistent call from inside the house, making her start. But then she laughed, shaking her head as she recognized _that_ tone of voice.

With a groan, she rose to her feet, scraping the paintbrush off into the can before setting it aside and trooping into the house. Henry was sitting at the dining room table, head in his hand, frowning down at his homework.

“Algebra, or English?” she inquired with a smile, peering over his shoulder. She’d made a not altogether unsuccessful pot of borscht for dinner, and felt a warm jolt of elation to see that he’d gone back for seconds, a red-splattered bowl and napkin sitting off to the side. _Take that, Regina!_ she thought triumphantly. _Who says I can’t cook?_

Her son sighed. “Algebra,” he said, grumpy. Emma could see the long equations marching across the page, and felt a pang of sympathy. Then he looked up, face splitting in a reluctant grin. “Wow, Mom, nice makeup.”

Emma blinked, then touched her face. “Oops,” she said with a laugh, feeling the swath of paint across her forehead. “Listen, kid, I didn’t hear you offer to help.”

“Because I have _home_ work,” Henry insisted, but he was laughing, too. Emma felt a warm twist of love and sympathy at the same time; his voice was starting to break. God, he was a teenager already!

She stood over his shoulder for a few minutes, helping him with the algebra problem. She’d never liked exponents much, either, but she’d started reading through his textbooks at night to re-acquaint herself, so at least she could lend a hand. 

At last he had the problem solved correctly, at least according to the book. “High five, kiddo,” Emma declared, and Henry obligingly smacked his palm against hers.

He slammed his book shut with satisfaction. “That’s the last one. Can I go over to the library now?” he asked, wheedling.

Emma groaned, pretending to be exasperated, and he grinned. “All right, but put on a sweater first,” she ordered sternly. “It’s going to chill off out there once the sun goes down.”

As he scampered away, books in hand, vaulting up the tiny curved stairs two steps at a time, Emma leaned back and yelled, “And I want you back by eight!”

There was an agreeable sort of loud grumble in return, and the door to his little attic bedroom slammed. Emma drew a hand across her forehead, wiping away a stray bead of sweat and tucking a stray hair behind her ear.  She looked down at her clothes.  They weren’t in much of a better state than her face, sprayed with tiny dots of white paint from the roller and smudged here and there from the brush.  Luckily she had worn an ancient oversized t-shirt, tied into a knot at the waist, and the pair of pants Henry called her ‘mom jeans,’ so it would be no great loss if she couldn’t get the stains out.

She wandered into her little bedroom, absently pulling the t-shirt over her head and tossing it into the hamper, wiggling out of the ugly jeans. She snorted to see herself in the mirror; her hair was a wreck of tangled, sweaty curls, and a swatch of pastel blue paint arced over one eyebrow. She would probably have to take baby oil to that before she showered, if not something stronger.

For the moment, she settled for pulling on a grubby old sweater and some yoga pants, and retying her ponytail into some semblance of order. Padding back out to the porch, she re-gathered the painting supplies, setting them on a tarp to one side for the time being. Tonight was dishes and laundry, and the weather was supposed to stay fair: she could put the buckets and brushes back into the basement tomorrow afternoon, once her early shift at the station was over.

Her hands on her hips, she heaved a sigh of satisfaction, looking once more at the round balusters with their alternating soft beige and blue, the smooth planes of the floorboards, the newly repaired steps braced by square railings.  She could hear the rumble of a large engine from down the street; probably one of the big boats coming back from a late-season fishing trip. Summer was fast fading into autumn, the leaves of the big maple tree in the front yard already fading to a pale green-yellow, and a cool wind was whipping the flag in front of the municipal building.

Emma smiled at the sight. After David had hired her back as a deputy last winter, she had managed to apply for a mortgage (a dreadfully subpar one, but still) and buy this house, located barely a block away from the sheriff’s station… and _right_ across the street from the mayor’s office.

Still, somehow her feud with Regina had finally ended: in part due to the distraction of the mayor taking a new lover, an inexplicably cheerful widower with a young boy of his own. Emma didn’t like shared custody any more than the other woman, but they grudgingly got along for Henry’s sake—since he _did_ seem to like switching back and forth between the mayor’s mansion and the deputy’s bungalow.

She heard the pounding of feet on the stairs and through the hallway, and Henry suddenly stood next to her, breathless, wearing his favorite old backpack. “Okay, I’m going now,” he announced.

The noise of the boat engine had somehow grown louder and less distant, taking on a familiar sort of rumble, but Emma ignored it. She and turned to face her son, smoothing back his unruly hair and putting her arms around him for a tight hug. He was probably getting a little too old for public hugs with his mom, but squeezed her back nonetheless.

Soft gratitude filled her heart—he was such a sweet kid.  “Have fun,” she said warmly.

Henry nodded and pulled away from her; but he paused at the edge of the porch, craning his neck. “Who’s that?” he asked curiously.

Emma, who had bent to pick up her painting knee pads, turned to see what he was looking at. Her heart suddenly skipped a beat at the gleam of chrome and shiny black metal. A long tractor-trailer, parked just short of the municipal sign that read _Storeybrooke_. No trucks ever drove right through the center of town.

The engines cut out just as she recognized their comforting cadence; and with a clunk, the driver’s door of the rig opened, a lean figure hopping out into the street and slamming the door behind him. It was a flatbed hitched to the rig this time, carrying an enormous yellow backhoe; she wondered briefly if one of those Oversize Load signs was on the back.

She realized Henry was looking at her strangely, waiting for an answer. “It’s, uh… a friend, actually,” she said, her mouth dry.

She watched as the figure turned about, holding up his phone in front of him and comparing it to the houses on the street. She had texted him a picture of the bungalow back in March, bursting with pride and wanting to share her happiness with someone who would genuinely, selflessly appreciate it. In turn, he’d shot back a selfie, his face creased in a dorky grin—with the Iowa 80 rest stop sign in the background, no less.

“Oh,” Henry said, already bored, and sidled off the porch towards his beloved library. “Well, I hope he’s cool. See you later, Mom!” Emma smiled at him, and he jog down the sidewalk, backpack bouncing.

She glanced back to the man in the street; at last, he turned in the direction of the bungalow, lowering the phone as he recognized the building. Emma raised a tentative hand and waved.

It was too far away to see the brilliant blue of his eyes, but she could make out the giant grin that split his features as he lifted his own arm and waved back, sunlight cheerfully flashing off the metal of his hook. All the hesitation and worry dropped from her heart, filling instead with joy, as Jones starting walking, then jogging toward her. The knee pads fell to the floor boards with a clunk as she tossed them down, her feet pattering on the front steps, carrying her swiftly across the lawn toward his waiting arms.


End file.
